After Japanese bank Nomura took over Lehman Brothers, it dismissed quite a few employees including Anna Francis and Maureen Murphy. Francis has dual UK and New Zealand citizenship while Murphy is a German national. Both of them sued the company for sex discrimination, racial discrimination and unfair dismissal before the Employment Tribunal claiming that they were laid off as they were not Japanese nationals and belonged to the fairer sex.

Murphy also claimed that she was sexually harassed stating that comments were made on her breasts and she was told that she should be cleaning floors and not working in an office. She also said that she was ridiculed due to her German accent. They had claimed compensation of £1.5m each for loss of income and mental harassment.

However, the Employment Tribunal found that the employer had followed the right criteria for declaring people redundant and none of the above mentioned claims had merit. Nomura International has expressed its happiness over the decision of the Tribunal.

It has yet not been clarified whether both claimants intend to appeal against the decision of Employment Tribunal or not. However, for its purposes, the employer has considered the matter decided and the case closed as a spokesperson indicated.

For anyone involved in human resources management, training and development, the Chartered Institute of Professional Development is the body to refer to. Organisations can keep up to date with employment relations developments with CIPD courses run by the trainers and consultants at Workplace Law, who have practical experience in the workplace, as well as sound legal knowledge to successfully help employers to set their own organisation’s policies and procedures in context and develop the skills needed in employment practice.