Ex-BGC Broker Loses Bullying Case as Judge Says Insults Common

By Kit Chellel  

A London broker who said he was bullied at BGC Partners Inc. (BGCP) lost his lawsuit against the company as a judge ruled he gave at least as good as he got on a trading floor that was rife with insults and abuse.
Robert Bou-Simon was “not the only object of ridicule and insult or the sole victim of the abuse,” said employment tribunal Judge Bernice Elgot, rejecting the unfair dismissal claim. He “indulged in it himself, and often gave worse than he got,” Elgot said in a ruling dated Aug. 13 and made available last week.
Bou-Simon, former head of BGC’s basis swaps desk, said the bullying started a few days after he joined the company in February 2012 when he refused to take part in an initiation ritual called “The Run,” where brokers are doused with water after
making their first trade. He argued BGC managers and colleagues orchestrated a campaign against him, forcing him to quit in June 2013, according to the ruling.
The case provides a snapshot of life on a London trading floor where, Judge Elgot said, “the most personal and wounding of insults” were used in instant message exchanges, especially against those who were struggling to bring in revenue. Bou-Simon didn’t see the messages at the time, according to the ruling. He obtained them as part of the lawsuit and relied on them as part of his claims of abuse.
Hannah Sloane, a spokeswoman for New York-based BGC, and Bou-Simon both declined to comment on the ruling in response to e-mails. Bou-Simon’s lawyer, Liz Buchan, didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
Judge Elgot said BGC employees’ conversations on instant messaging services were “often homophobic, racist and sexist.” The comments were seen as “banter (a word which seems to cover a multitude of sins),” said the judge.

Obscene Language

“This method of communication in these terms appears to be part of the culture of this workplace,” Judge Elgot said. Bou-Simon participated in some of the chats “and in the use of personally insulting and obscene language.”
Bou-Simon argued that the bullying broadened into a deliberate effort to force him out of the company, the judge said. Attempts to move Bou-Simon to a different unit, called MINT, and investigations of complaints made about him by junior brokers were part of the campaign, Bou-Simon said.
Judge Elgot rejected those arguments and said BGC hadn’t breached Bou-Simon’s contract.
The judge found that messages sent by Anthony Herbert, who would go on to replace Bou-Simon as head of the desk, to BGC’s U.K. general manager Mark Webster were evidence of a “brutal competitiveness” rather than an attempt to get Bou-Simon fired.
Herbert wrote, “I’m going to destroy Bob,” a reference to Bou-Simon, according to the ruling. Under Bou-Simon, desk revenue fell, so “he exposed himself to a lack of respect in this particular working culture,” Elgot said. Webster and Herbert didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
Bou-Simon’s “employment just did not work out,” Judge Elgot said. “It was an unhappy situation, there were high expectations on both sides.”