In 2004, Leigh Short, a former sales person on Deutsche Bank's Asian and Australian Equities Sales desks, filed a Charge of Discrimination with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging gender discrimination. On August 23, 2006, the EEOC issued a Letter of Determination finding that "there is reasonable cause to believe that Respondent discriminated against Charging Party and a class of similarly situated females on its Asian and Australian Sales desks, in violation of Title VII. This determination is final."
Lawyer(s):
David Marek
Blaine H. Bortnick

On January 18, 2006, a panel of three arbitrators from the New York Stock Exchange awarded $772,000 in compensatory damages to Gary Cunningham, a former sales trader at ABN AMRO Securities, Inc. Mr. Cunningham, the co-head of the desk, sued ABN for breach of contract and for violating its Key Employee Equity Programme (KEEP), pursuant to which ABN pays its employees deferred compensation. Mr. Cunningham worked on ABNs European Equities desk in New York City from April 1999 through April 2002. In March 2002, Mr. Cunningham proposed to ABN that in exchange for his unvested deferred compensation, he would help transition the bulk of his accounts to ABNs sales traders based in London. The firm agreed, and Mr. Cunningham successfully transitioned his accounts. Days later, ABN reneged, informing Mr. Cunningham that it would forfeit his unvested deferred compensation if he joined a competitor. Shortly thereafter, ABN terminated Mr. Cunninghams employment without cause because he was redundant. ABN argued that it was entitled to forfeit Mr. Cunninghams deferred compensation because he joined a competitor, notwithstanding the terms of its KEEP. ABN argued further that Mr. Cunningham actually resigned voluntarily, although the evidence presented at the eight day hearing revealed otherwise. The Panel, by awarding Mr. Cunningham $772,000, determined that ABN breached its contract with Mr. Cunningham and/or acted in violation of the terms of its KEEP when it forfeited Mr. Cunninghams deferred compensation. David Marek of Liddle & Robinson, L.L.P. served as lead trial counsel for Mr. Cunningham.
Lawyer(s):
David Marek

Web Info(URL) www.nyse.com/arbitration/1138792343321.html

On August 7, 2001, a NASD arbitration panel awarded our client, Stephen B. Sawtelle, $27,574,499, including $25 million in punitive damages, against Waddell & Reed, Inc. for violation of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA) in the manner in which it competed with Mr. Sawtelle after it terminated him as a mutual fund broker and he went to work for another firm. The award is for $1,827,499 in actual damages and $747,000 in attorneys' fees against Waddell & Reed and fourteen of its employees and agents and for $25 million in punitive damages against Waddell & Reed and Robert Hechler, its CEO. The punitive damages award is one of the largest ever in a securities industry arbitration. Waddell & Reed and the other Respondents were also ordered to pay all $110,300 of the NASD's forum fees, resulting in a refund to Mr. Sawtelle of the $21,440 in forum fees he had paid. The arbitrators denied Waddell & Reed's counterclaims against Mr. Sawtelle. In addition to awarding damages, the arbitrators ordered that defamatory information Waddell & Reed had placed on Mr. Sawtelle's Form U-5 be expunged. During the hearings, the arbitrators also granted our request to sanction the Respondents, ordering them to pay Mr. Sawtelle $2,000 each, for a total of $30,000, for violating an order of the arbitrators. Mr. Sawtelle was a mutual fund broker for Waddell & Reed, Inc. in Connecticut for 17 years until his termination in February 1997. Mr. Sawtelle had been the top-producing broker in the country for Waddell & Reed in 1996. In mid-1996, Waddell & Reed discovered that another broker, David Stevenson, had embezzled several million dollars from his customers. The SEC began an investigation in which Mr. Sawtelle testified. Mr. Sawtelle testified to the SEC that when Mr. Sawtelle was Mr. Stevenson's supervisor years before Mr. Stevenson's embezzlement was discovered, Waddell & Reed's upper management failed to follow Mr. Sawtelle's repeated recommendations that Mr. Stevenson's employment be terminated after other incidents of misconduct by Stevenson. When Waddell & Reed obtained a transcript of Mr. Sawtelle's testimony, Waddell & Reed terminated Mr. Sawtelle. Shortly after his termination, Mr. Sawtelle became a mutual fund broker for Hackett Associates, Inc. The Arbitration Panel found that "Respondent Waddell & Reed and Hechler through agents of Waddell & Reed demonstrated reprehensible conduct that warrants an award of punitive damages. The Panel further found that after Claimant [(Mr. Sawtelle)] was terminated Respondents orchestrated a campaign of deception which included, among other things, giving the impression to clients that Claimant had mishandled their investments, Claimant was untrustworthy, Claimant was no longer in business, Claimant was not authorized to do business, and Claimant was in some way involved with the embezzling of client funds. The Panel also found that Waddell & Reed, through its agents, re-routed Claimant's mail and his telephone lines, as a result, telephone calls and mail intended for Claimant were received by Waddell & Reed and its agents." On June 10, 2002, the New York State Supreme Court entered a Judgment, on behalf of Sawtelle, in the amount of $28,671,410.18, against Waddell & Reed and Robert Hechler (the firm's former CEO). This follows the May 31, 2002 Decision and Order of New York State Supreme Court Justice Michael D. Stallman, which confirmed, in spite of Waddell & Reed's motion to vacate, almost all of the arbitration award. Justice Stallman upheld all of the arbitrators' $25 million punitive damages award, the $747,000 attorneys' fee award, and the expungement of information from Mr. Sawtelle's Form U-5, and upheld $1,080,499 of the $1,827,499 compensatory damages award. The Court modified the award and reduced it by $747,000, on grounds that the compensatory damages award included attorneys' fees which were also awarded as a separate item. The Court also ordered over $1.8 million in interest to be paid on the arbitration award. Notably, Justice Stallman wrote in his Decision and Order, in connection with the arbitration panel's punitive damages award, that "[s]uffice it to say, the Panel's findings find support in the record. For example, there was evidence before the Panel that Waddell representatives implied to certain customers that Sawtelle had been fired because, like Stevenson [a different Waddell broker], he had embezzled client funds. In light of the Panel's findings, it was not unreasonable for the Panel to impose punitive damages in an amount that would, in fact, be punitive." In November 2002, Mr. Sawtelle was selected by the National Employment Lawyers' Association as one of its Courageous Plaintiffs. On February 11, 2003, the Appellate Division, First Department modified the Judgment entered by Justice Stallman to vacate the punitive damages award, "remanded to the original panel of arbitrators for reconsideration of the issue of punitive damages," and otherwise affirmed Justice Stallman's Judgment. (Sawtelle v. Waddell & Reed, Inc., 304 A.D.2d 103, 754 N.Y.S.2d 264 (1st Dep't 2003).) On February 25, 2003, Mr. Sawtelle was paid $2,069,620.80, comprised of the confirmed $1,080,499 in compensatory damages, the confirmed $747,000 attorneys' fee award, plus $242,121.80 in interest on those amounts. On September 4, 2003, after reviewing the parties' written submissions and holding a one-day hearing on remand from the Appellate Division, the Arbitration Panel issued an Award for $25 million in punitive damages, and assessed the $2,000 in forum fees against Waddell & Reed and Hechler. In its Award, the Arbitration Panel acknowledged that Waddell & Reed and Hechler argued to the Arbitration Panel on remand "that this case remains an 'ordinary commercial dispute' meriting a modest award of punitive damages," and added language to its Award that was not in its original Award that Waddell & Reed's and Hechler's "campaign of deception" was a "horrible campaign of deception, defamation and persecution of Claimant." On January 22, 2004, Justice Stallman of the New York State Supreme Court vacated the second arbitration Award of $25 million in punitive damages and directed the parties to submit the issue to a new panel. Mr. Sawtelle then filed a motion before Justice Stallman requesting that he set a remittitur -- a maximum amount of punitive damages that the Court would approve -- which Mr. Sawtelle could then accept and avoid yet another arbitration, or which he could reject and proceed to a new arbitration hearing. While remittitur is a standard procedure in jury cases in court, and Justice Stallman recognized that remittitur would "make sense" to avoid multiple arbitrations to determine the amount of punitive damages, Justice Stallman denied Mr. Sawtelle's request in an Order on November 30, 2004. On September 22, 2005, the Appellate Division affirmed Justice Stallman's order vacating the punitive damages award and remanding to a new arbitration panel. (21 A.D.3d 820, 801 N.Y.S.2d 286 (1st Dep't 2005).) Mr. Sawtelle then appealed to the New York Court of Appeals, New York's highest court. The Court of Appeals declined to take the case at the time, on technical grounds, because it lacked jurisdiction over the appeal. On December 15, 2005, Waddell & Reed and Hechler and Mr. Sawtelle reached a settlement in which Waddell & Reed paid Mr. Sawtelle $7.9 million. In total, Mr. Sawtelle received about $10 million ($7.9 million in settlement of his punitive damages, $2,069,620.80 in compensatory damages, attorneys' fees, and interest, $30,000 in sanctions paid during the arbitration, and $21,440 refunded from the NASD pursuant to the arbitrators' first Award ordering that Waddell & Reed and the other Respondents pay all of the forum fees).
Lawyer(s):
Jeffrey L. Liddle
Michael E. Grenert

Web Info(URL) www.liddlerobinson.com/pdf/9703642.pdf
Judge: Michael D. Stallman and 1st Department

James Alban-Davies was hired by Credit Lyonnais in August 1995 to build and head an emerging markets debt trading and sales group. Credit Lyonnais failed to pay Mr. Alban-Davies a bonus for 1999, yet each of his direct reports -- all of whom were younger than he was -- received bonus compensation. We filed claims of age discrimination on behalf of Mr. Alban-Davies under federal, state and city statutes in the District Court of the Southern District of New York. Shortly thereafter, Credit Lyonnais stripped Mr. Alban-Davies of his title and his reports as part of a "reorganization" of his department. We amended Mr. Alban-Davies's Complaint to add claims of retaliation, asserting that Credit Lyonnais had taken such adverse action against Mr. Alban-Davies because he had filed claims of age discrimination against the firm. Although Mr. Alban-Davies's age discrimination claims were dismissed on summary judgment, the retaliation claims based on Mr. Alban-Davies's demotion survived. Credit Lyonnais ultimately terminated Mr. Alban-Davies's employment, at which time we again amended his Complaint to include another retaliation claim. Credit Lyonnais again moved for summary judgment on all of the remaining claims, and again Mr. Alban-Davies's retaliation claims based on his demotion survived. When Credit Lyonnais filed a motion for reconsideration of the Court's decision, such motion was denied. Mr. Alban-Davies's claim settled shorlty before trial.
Lawyer(s):
Jeffrey L. Liddle
Christine A. Palmieri

Web Info(URL) www.nysd.uscourts.gov/courtweb
Judge: Denise Cote

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reinstated the age discrimination claim of our client, Charles Carlton. Mr. Carlton worked as director of marketing at Mystic, the New York City based oil and fuel transportation company, for almost seven years. Mystic fired Mr. Carlton at age 57, and replaced him with much younger employees. Mr. Carlton sued Mystic for age discrimination under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, as amended and similar state and city laws. The federal appeals court believed that Mr. Carlton had alleged sufficient facts for a jury to conclude that he was fired because of his age, and thus reversed the lower court's dismissal of his claims. The United States Supreme Court denied Mystic's request that it hear the case on appeal. Mr. Carlton and Mystic settled his claims shortly before the trial was scheduled to begin.
Lawyer(s):
Ethan A. Brecher

Web Info(URL) caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=2nd&navby=case&no=987973

Our client, Robert Jones, joined a Cleveland, Ohio Salomon Smith Barney branch office as a stockbroker. Shortly after he joined Smith Barney from PaineWebber, his employment was terminated allegedly because he had failed to disclose a customer complaint. Mr. Jones claimed that he had made all appropriate disclosures to Smith Barney, and an NASD arbitration panel agreed, awarding him $25,000.00 in damages. The panel also sanctioned Smith Barney $5,000.00 for misconduct during the hearing and assessed it forum fees of $5,100.00.

Web Info(URL) www.liddlerobinson.com/pdf/9504058.pdf

Marc Helie worked as a trader in Merrill Lynchs Emerging Markets Group from 1989-1994. Merrill Lynch terminated Mr. Helies employment in 1994 without paying him a bonus, and shortly before he would have vested in a number of stock options that had been awarded to him previously. Following an 11-day trial, a NASD arbitration panel awarded Mr. Helie $600,000.00 and also directed Merrill Lynch to deliver to him 7,056 shares of its common stock, then valued at $230,202, together with all dividends declared from July 31, 1994. The panel also assessed Merrill Lynch $12,250.00 in forum fees.
Lawyer(s):
Jeffrey L. Liddle

Web Info(URL) www.liddlerobinson.com/pdf/9501297.pdf

Darlene Livingston, a municipal bond liaison for Shearson Lehman Brothers, sued Shearson for sex discrimination, including on the grounds that the company permitted a sexually hostile environment to exist at work. This conduct exhibited itself through sexually oriented comments, insults, pranks, cartoons, pictures, devices and food items on the trading floor. After Ms. Livingston filed suit following her termination, Shearson served a subpoena on her current employer seeking records for any treatment she was undergoing for “substance abuse.” Ms. Livingston then filed an additional claim, alleging that Shearson had misused the subpoena process, because she was fired shortly after Shearson served the subpoena on her new employer. After a 25-day trial, a NASD arbitration panel awarded Ms. Livingston $130,000.00 on her hostile environment sexual harassment claim, $32,500.00 in attorneys’ fees, $10,000.00 on her claim that Shearson misused the subpoena process, and an additional $3,500.00 in legal fees based on Shearson’s misconduct in presenting its defense to her claims. The panel also assessed Shearson $24,800.00 in forum fees. A former L&R partner served as co-counsel in trying this case.
Lawyer(s):
Ethan A. Brecher

Web Info(URL) www.liddlerobinson.com/pdf/9300770.pdf