In-House Counsel

In-House Counsel Out Of A Job After Using Wildly Inappropriate Nicknames For Co-Workers

Yikes, not particualrly professional.

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cartoon pair of eyes wowBNP Paribas announced earlier this week that Benedict Foster, the London head of legal for debt and equity, was “retiring.” But this is not a break out the gold watch moment — Foster had been on leave since February, after it was revealed he called an Asian colleague “Hu She” and “Global Head of Bag-Carrying,” referred to his female managers as “cunts,” and called an Indian colleague “Biryani.”

These penchant for inappropriate nicknames garnered a lot of attention. And BNP Paribas’s investigation of the incidents imposes sanctions on Foster, but cleared him of racist intent. Foster even issued a public apology earlier this year:

“I accept that I have said things to colleagues that were unacceptable. While a full investigation found no racist intent on my part, I understand that certain remarks made by me caused offence. I can only apologise for any distress I have caused, accept the appropriate sanction from my employer and commit to doing better in future.”

But then Monday, the company announced Foster was out. And, as reported by Roll on Friday, it seems to have been a sudden move:

In an all-staff email on Monday, the bank’s UK General Counsel, Helen Fletcher, announced that Foster was “retiring” from the French bank. He is understood to have been on leave since February, but the announcement seems to have been made in something of a hurry. There is now no head of the UK DECM legal team, with Fletcher telling staff the new management structure would be confirmed and communicated “as soon as possible”. BNP Paribas did not respond to requests for a comment*.

Internally, however, not everyone is pleased with the handling of the situation:

However, the bank’s response was seen as supine by some staff, who used BNP Paribas’ internal messaging board, Rungway, to criticise its handling of the incident.

“How can we possibly hope to change the culture of the organisation when there are no consequences for blatant racist behaviour…It’s frankly embarrassing to work for BNP Paribas right now”, said one employee on Rungway. “It’s quite clear that the grievance process is a sham and a farce”, said another.

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Now, on this internal message board, leadership had some justifications for the determination that the comments were not racist. But wow, the explanations sure ring hollow to me:

The bank’s UK General Counsel, Helen Fletcher, responded by telling staff on the platform that Foster’s comments were “undoubtedly rude, inappropriate and hurtful”, but that, “it was clearly established that the label Biryani was not a reference to an employee of Indian origin”, and that, “in relation to the label Hu She”, the internal BNP Paribas panel “was satisfied that this label was not racially motivated”.

The French bank’s UK Deputy Country Head, Francois Draveny, invited aggrieved staff to consider the investigation “through a different lens”, suggesting that if they were wrongly accused of misconduct, they “would be very keen for the organisation to carefully consider all the evidence and context, rather than rely on the ‘Court of public opinion'”.

Moral of the story remains — maybe pull back on the questionable nicknames.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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