UBS hit with $1.6M gender discrimination, retaliation award

A financial advisor who claimed she was subjected to gender discrimination and retaliation by UBS Financial Services and its market manager in Boston, James E. Ducey, has been awarded $1,633,019 following arbitration.

Christine Carona was awarded damages, attorneys’ fees, and costs following a seven-day hearing.

The arbitrator found that UBS and Ducey discriminated against Carona based on her gender by not recognizing her achievements in the same manner as they recognized those of male financial advisors, by not providing adequate administrative support, and by not providing Carona with account reassignments when other financial advisors left UBS.

The arbitrator also found that Ducey used offensive language with regard to Carona and made crude, often sexist, comments about her, according to a press release from her attorney, Daniel M. Rabinovitz of Murphy & King in Boston.

The arbitrator further found that on four occasions between August 2015 and May 2017 Carona complained to Ducey and the UBS human resources department that she was being discriminated against based on her gender. Ducey responded by claiming to the human resources department that Carona’s complaints constituted harassment against him.

Hours after Carona’s May 2017 complaint, Ducey and UBS retaliated against her for complaining about gender discrimination by suddenly instituting a policy that applied only to Carona’s trust clients, Rabinovitz said.