Goldman Sachs banker who was branded ‘lazy’ by bosses whereas on paternity go away and chastised for not answering electronic mail whereas on vacation wins intercourse discrimination case

A Goldman Sachs banker who was branded ‘lazy’ while on paternity leave has won a sex discrimination case after he was sacked just as he was due back at work. 

Jon Reeves, who was a vice president in Goldman’s compliance department in London, was dismissed shortly before his return from paternity leave in 2022. 

The bank claimed his termination was in relation to performance, but Mr Reeves insisted that the real reason was because the bank disapproved of male employees taking extended leave to look after their children. 

A tribunal heard bosses held a ‘dismissive’ attitude to fathers dealing with childcare, as Mr Reeves alleged he was told by one male manager: ‘You’re a grown man, you can sort this out’ when he discussed his difficulty in balancing work and family life.

Mr Reeves also told a tribunal that bosses took a dim view of him not responding to an email for 24 hours when he was away on a family holiday, telling him his lack of response had been a ‘negative sound bite’ from their point of view.

Now, Mr Reeves, who is a father of two and had been in the job for 15 years, has successfully sued Goldman Sachs for sex discrimination and unfair dismissal.

His claim is reported to be worth up to £3.8million, according to Bloomberg which cited court documents. 

The tribunal heard Mr Reeves was consistently rated by the bank to be performing well in his role, so when he was made redundant before returning from paternity leave, he sued Goldman Sachs for sex discrimination and unfair dismissal.

The panel which upheld his claims highlighted the ‘striking coincidence’ that allegations of him underperforming came whilst he was on leave.

The tribunal, held in central London, heard Mr Reeves started working for the global financial institution in 2007 in Salt Lake City in the United States before moving to Sydney, Australia.

He transferred to London in 2013 and in 2016 he was appointed Deputy Global Head of the Control Room — the part of the bank that manages the flow of sensitive corporate information to ensure that there are no breaches of confidentiality and of regulatory rules.

In 2019, Mr Reeves and his wife had their first child and after the Covid pandemic struck in March 2020 he began working from from his flat.

The tribunal heard that shortly afterwards he opened up to his managers Tin Hsien Tan and Omar Beer about his difficulty in balancing childcare responsibilities with work.

It was heard that Mr Beer told him ‘You’re a grown man, you can sort this out’ in response to these comments.

The tribunal said: ‘[We] considered that Mr Beer appeared to be unwilling to acknowledge to the particular hardships or difficulties that some people, including those with very young children, might have experienced during Covid lockdowns.’

Both Mr Beer and Ms Tan were said to be ‘dismissive’ of Mr Reeves ‘as a man’ having difficulty in balancing childcare with work during lockdown.

The tribunal was told of an event which took place on the August Bank Holiday weekend of that year in which Mr Reeves, his wife, and young child were driving down to Cornwall for their first ever family holiday.

A ‘very urgent’ issue broke out at the bank which saw all senior individuals, including the company’s Chief Operating Officer, to be called up to help.

Rather than phoning Mr Reeves, manager Mr Beer sent him an email which said ‘Need to talk – are you available’.

The father was ‘not regularly checking his emails when he was driving’ so missed the message.

The vice president said this matter was ‘repeatedly raised with me as a missed opportunity’ with one manager branding it ‘a really negative sound bite’ in relation to his performance.

During this period, Mr Reeves was being considered for a Managing Director role although the tribunal said his bosses did have doubts about future career.

In February 2021, he was temporarily moved out of the control room to allow another colleague to ‘grow’ and to allow him to ‘progress towards Managing Director-level performance’.

Some three months later, he told boss Ada Liu that he and his wife were expecting another baby and that he planned to take six months’ paternity leave from November until May 2022.

In the autumn Mr Beer told Mr Reeves that he was ‘jealous’ of him and that he should ‘take advantage’ of the leave.

In feedback gathered at the end of 2021, Mr Reeves was assessed as doing well in all culture and conduct categories with several examples of him ‘outperforming’.

But, in a meeting in December boss Ms Liu – who told the tribunal that bank colleagues were not ‘wowed’ by Mr Reeves – told him that he was ‘underperforming’.

The father of two said that while he is ‘falling short at times’ he felt as though the ‘negative feedback correlated to times when he had family commitments’.

In February the following year, while Mr Reeves was still on paternity leave, he was told the the control role team was ‘functioning well without him’ and so he would not return to it following parental leave.

A month later, Goldman Sachs were looking to lay off staff and asked Mr Beer, Ms Tan and Ms Lui, to identify the ‘bottom 2.5 per cent’.

Ms Liu gave Mr Reeves’ name and no one else’s.

It was heard that during the tribunal proceedings, Mr Beer confirmed he ‘had never put a woman’s name forward for redundancy when she was on maternity leave’.

In May, shortly before his paternity leave was due to end, Mr Reeves was informed that he had been placed at risk of redundancy and he was consequently placed on gardening leave before he was dismissed in September 2022.

Shortly before his termination he raised a grievance in which Mr Beer was recorded as saying he was ‘kind of lazy’.

In his claim form, he alleged that Ms Liu once made comments to him like ‘many of us have kids’ and ‘we all have families’ when he discussed his childcare struggles.

Mr Reeves sued for sex discrimination and his claims have now been upheld by an employment judge.

The business disputed his allegations and said that Mr Reeves’ dismissal arose out of longstanding performance issues.

During the hearing, he was asked whether his suggestion was that men taking parental leave are treated disadvantageously compared to women taking maternity leave.

In response, he said: ‘No – I think women are treated terribly including in the world and at Goldman Sachs…

‘I think in my situation, I’m like a white man that tried to walk into a restaurant and got told that I can’t sit down.

‘So, I was discriminated against.

‘What happened to me would not happen to a woman at Goldman Sachs, 100%.’

The father said the bank would not ‘risk’ doing what they did to him to a woman during her maternity leave.

In its judgement, the tribunal said there was ‘no attempt’ to carry out any ‘fair process’ before dismissing Mr Reeves.

‘It was not clear to the Tribunal when, and on what objective basis, [his] managers decided that he was ‘underperforming’.

‘It was clear, however, that Ms Liu told him that he was underperforming on 9 December 2021, when he was on parental leave.

‘The [bank] did not show that the allegation of underperformance was not because of sex.

‘All the alleged detrimental acts were done while [Mr Reeves] was on parental leave, which is for the purpose of bonding with and caring for children.

‘In the history of all the detriments there remained a striking coincidence between them and [Mr Reeves’] absence from work on parental leave, for childcare.

‘Against that backdrop, it was significant that [his] managers, Ms Tan and Mr Beer were dismissive of [him], as a man, having any issues in relation to childcare.

‘The Tribunal found that [Goldman Sachs] discriminated against [Mr Reeves] because of sex when it dismissed him.’

Although he won claims of sex discrimination and unfair dismissal, the tribunal found that there was a 50% likelihood he would have been dismissed, in any event, soon after he returned from parental leave which may mean the damages he receives are reduced.

A remedy hearing to decide his compensation will take place next year.

A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs said: ‘The firm is deeply committed to supporting working parents, with hundreds of Goldman Sachs fathers having taken up our market leading 26 weeks paid parental leave since it was introduced in 2019. 

‘We are carefully reviewing the judgment and the reasoning supporting its findings.’