Former Associate Accuses $8.5B Wall Street Hedge Fund of 'Rating Women,' Frequent Slurs
A former investment associate, hired at age 30, accuses hedge fund Advent Capital Management in federal court of allowing male superiors to openly and "brazenly classify" women as ones to either "f___," "marry," or "kill."
May 19, 2020 at 03:09 PM
8 minute read
Wall Street in New York City. Photo: Lucky-photographe/rShutterstock
A former investment associate has launched a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit alleging that a prominent Wall Street hedge fund allowed male superiors on an open-space trading floor to refer to women generally as "bitches" and "cunts," and to "brazenly classify" women as ones to either "f___," "marry," or "kill."
The federal lawsuit, which lays out allegations that repeatedly smack of the movie "The Wolf of Wall Street," was lodged Monday against Advent Capital Management by former junior investment associate Courtney Robb.
The 37-page complaint lays out allegations of male-only leadership at the hedge fund and the relegation of almost every female employee to an investor relations-type group.
Robb, who was 30 when she was hired by the international hedge fund in 2016, claims that some of the worst and most frequent harassing behavior came from a portfolio manager named Mike Brown. He allegedly sat just "a few feet away" from her at a packed seven-person roundtable on the trading floor known as the "Fishbowl."
Often, according to Robb, who is represented by the Wigdor law firm, Brown would openly rate women on a 1-10 scale. On Nov. 22, 2016, for example, he allegedly saw Chelsea Clinton in a building hallway, which happened often because Clinton worked for The Clinton Foundation in the same Midtown building that housed Advent Capital. Brown soon came back to the trading floor and said openly, "On her best day, Chelsea Clinton is a 3," according to the suit.
At another point, Brown allegedly spoke about a junior female associate, referred to as "Ms. Cross" in the complaint, and Cross' boyfriend. On March 21, 2017, he allegedly said "for everyone to hear": "If I knew I could look like that and have sex with someone who looked like her, I would never go to the gym. She's model hot. I'd like a photo of her. I can't believe she has sex with someone like him. He must be really rich."
The next day, according to the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, Robb learned that Cross had had a panic attack on her way to work.
Another time, on Dec. 20, 2016, Brown, speaking in front of "the entire trading floor," allegedly called Robb an "idiot with zero reading comprehension skills."
According to the suit, when Robb and other women tried to complain to upper management about behavior that made them feel belittled and discriminated against, they encountered pushback and, in Robb's case, a retaliatory firing and then state court litigation waged against her led by Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath. The suit claims the firm was ordered to file numerous motions against her in an effort to bleed her money dry.
Advent Capital on Monday, a fund with more than $8 billion under management, said in a statement that "while [it] cannot comment on pending litigation, we believe that the complaint does not fairly or accurately recount the facts." It further said that it intends to "vigorously defend" against Robb's claims.
Jeanne Christensen, a Wigdor partner, said Monday, "This case demonstrates that #MeToo still has many miles to go on Wall Street. Female employees continue to be silenced in this male-dominated sector."
According to the complaint, in which Robb includes retaliation claims based both on her firing and the state court suit lodged against her for alleged theft of confidential information, she was called to a March 2017 meeting with Advent Capital's chief operating officer in which he ostensibly wanted to investigate Brown's comments about Cross.
Robb, along with two other women at the fund, corroborated Cross' description of the Brown incident, the lawsuit says. And she "complained to [COO Kris Haber] about the men's constant use of terms like 'cunt' and 'bitch' on the trading floor." She also allegedly told Haber about the company's failure to provide a "safe and clean" pumping room for a colleague back from maternity leave.
Five minutes after the meeting, she was called into the office of Advent Capital founder and CEO Tracy Maitland, according to the complaint.
"So, I heard you think the company's management is fucked up," he told her, according to the suit. Then he "dismissed her concerns" as simply "male 'locker-room talk.'"
Later, after Robb expressed "challenges that women faced … as evidenced by the disproportional rate at which female employees were leaving the company," Maitland allegedly shot back at her, "What do you want me to do? Hire more women? They just end up leaving to take care of kids!"
She also told Maitland of an incident in the company's kitchen when Brown allegedly "physically and inappropriately touched [Robb] and asked if she wanted a kiss," before reaching back behind her to grab a Hershey's Kiss candy and accusing her of overreacting, the suit says.
After the meeting with Maitland, who along with the hedge fund is a named defendant in the suit, Robb claims she was micromanaged. In May 2017 she was fired.
"In the blink of an eye, Ms. Robb went from being an excellent employee to suddenly and inexplicably a person deserving of termination because she was a 'poor fit,'" the complaint, signed by Christensen of Wigdor, alleges.
Later in 2017, and "just weeks" after Robb submitted a discrimination complaint to the New York City Commission on Human Rights, Advent Capital sent Robb's then-lawyer a "threatening letter" and "urged [her] to drop her protected legal claims" or she'd be accused by the hedge fund of "civil theft," the complaint states.
In December 2017, Robb was sued in Manhattan Supreme Court, according to the lawsuit and a review of court records. The suit is a misappropriation of trade secrets and civil theft action that seeks compensatory damages and punitive damages, among other relief.
The action, which is ongoing, alleges Robb's "illegal, unauthorized, and otherwise wrongful misappropriation and theft," and says that she "stole key documents from the company with the intent of causing harm to Advent's business and reputation." "Most troubling," an opening section states, "in one day alone, Defendant forwarded approximately 50 e-mails from her work e-mail account to her personal e-mail account, each containing confidential and proprietary information and data."
In Robb and Wigdor's federal filing, they claim the state court suit was another type of retaliation.
It "falsely and frivolously accused Ms. Robb of alleged misdeeds concerning work-related emails that at all times were in the possession of Advent," the Robb complaint says. It adds that the hedge fund, by filing its suit, intended to "inflict severe harm [on Robb], as well as to silence her and other female employees," and that "such abuse of the legal process is the reason why punitive damages exist and why such extreme penalties are requested."
Moreover, claims Robb and Wigdor, Advent Capital retained "a behemoth law firm [in the suit against Robb] that claims it has 'more than 1,300 attorneys, consultants and professionals in 22 locations across the U.S., U.K. and China … to aggressively litigate" the case.
"Knowing that Ms. Robb was forced to pay for her legal defense in the … Action on an hourly basis, Advent cruelly instructed its high priced lawyers to file multiple motions and to otherwise create endless conflict to cause Ms. Robb further financial harm," the federal complaint claims.
Court records show the firm is Faegre Drinker, using lawyers from its Manhattan office. Clay Pierce, a Faegre Drinker partner, said the firm has no comment at this time.
In its statement Monday, Advent Capital noted it had "filed a lawsuit against plaintiff … that remains pending," and that "Advent is proud of its commitment to a culture free of harassment and being a strong advocate of civil rights organizations nationally."
Maitland reportedly is one of the few African American Wall Street hedge fund managers who runs his own firm.
Robb, who seeks compensatory and punitive damages in the federal lawsuit, brings claims under federal Title VII law, the state human rights act, the city human rights act and other laws.
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