A Hong Kong court has ruled that an investment bank wrongly fired a senior trader for circulating a video that included a link to a parody video featuring Adolf Hitler, as portrayed in the 2004 move “Downfall.”
Grant Williams, the former Asia head of equity trading at Jefferies Group, sued his ex-employer in 2011 for wrongful dismissal, claiming $1.7 million in damages. He was fired by the New York-based bank in December 2010, just after sent out the link in late 2010 as part of a daily newsletter he edited and circulated to about 900 clients. Jefferies said sending out the link was “unacceptable and entirely inappropriate misconduct” and senior Jefferies executives later testified that they thought it was racist and anti-Semitic.
