FX trader's unfair dismissal victory sharpens battle lines

By Jamie McGeever

LONDON (Reuters) - The London employment tribunal ruling in favour of a former Citi currency dealer against the bank this week is likely to entrench the positions of other ex-traders and banks awaiting unfair dismissal hearings, legal sources said on Wednesday.

Dozens of traders, including the chief dealers at some of the world's biggest banks, were fired amid a global investigation into allegations that some of them had shared information and colluded to rig the $5 trillion (3 trillion pounds)-a-day market.

Judge Alison Russell on Tuesday ruled against Citi in its dispute with Perry Stimpson, who was fired in November 2014 after 25 years as a trader at the bank.

Other traders sacked by their banks are likely to view Stimpson's victory as a "David & Goliath" moment and a benchmark decision that could boost their prospects in the forthcoming cases.

Any suggestion that Citi and other banks might now consider offering settlements in future cases would be wide of the mark, lawyers told Reuters, saying that banks are most likely to fight back even harder to show they had acted for the right reasons.

"Primarily they will do so for reputational purposes, to illustrate that they take employee misconduct seriously," said Paul McAleavey, a solicitor at Brahams Dutt Badrick and French, which specialises in employment law.

"A lesser factor is that they are unlikely to suffer in any material way financially," McAleavey said.

Lawyers said that unfair dismissal awards to individuals are capped at a little less than 80,000 pounds. In an industry where revenue, profits and fines are measured in the billions, that's a relatively insignificant sum.

Stimpson had been fired for sharing confidential client information with other traders in chatrooms, which he said was known about and condoned by senior management. Citi denied it had authorised or condoned such behaviour.

His was the first of a handful of cases brought by traders in London.

Ian Drysdale, a former trader at Royal Bank of Scotland, has had his case heard and is awaiting the employment tribunal's verdict, while former Citi traders Carly McWilliams, David Madaras and Robert Hoodless have their hearings coming up in the next few months.

Because unfair dismissal claims must be filed within three months of dismissal, more cases are likely to be in the pipeline but have yet to be made public, lawyers said.

Citi is one of seven banks to be fined more than $10 billion for failing to stop traders manipulating the $5.3 trillion-a-day forex market between 2008 and October 2013. It paid $2.3 billion in fines to U.S. and British authorities.

(Editing by Alexander Smith and David Goodman)