HSBC has lost its appeal against a court’s decision to reinstate a senior investment banker’s lawsuit that alleged the bank victimised and discriminated against her when it did not hire her for a senior sales role in 2018. The Court of Appeal ruled that the claim should be re-heard by an employment tribunal, in part because the lower court had not properly decided what the claimant knew – and when – before deciding the case was out of time. Carmen Chevalier-Firescu sued HSBC in 2020, claiming she was not appointed as the head of the bank’s London derivatives sales team for hedge funds partly because she had sued her former employer, Barclays, for making her redundant after she returned from maternity leave. Her case was initially dismissed by a tribunal but reinstated on appeal earlier this year. HSBC had told the Court of Appeal that Chevalier-Firescu’s claims should be dismissed in part because she had filed them after the standard three-month window. Reuters notes that the lawsuit is a rare example of an employment claim against a prospective, rather than current, employer.
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