Goldman Sachs criticises £1.45m paternity payout
Goldman Sachs has criticised a ruling to hand one of its former senior executives a £1.45m payout over his dismissal while on paternity leave.
Jonathan Reeves, who served as the deputy global head of the Wall Street bank’s compliance ‘control room’ in London, was dismissed from his job in 2022 when he was due to return from his extended parental leave. The bank offers parents up to 26 weeks’ paid leave.
Reeves had been with the bank since 2007, having joined its Salt Lake City office before being transferred to the UK six years later. He took a six-month contractual parental leave to care for his new child, starting in November 2021.
Before he was due to return from his paternity leave, he was informed that he was at risk of redundancy and had his building and IT access cut off. He sued the investment banking giant for sex discrimination and unfair dismissal, seeking £3.8m in damages.
The bank claimed the dismissal was due to a diminished need for his role, but a Tribunal found in its original 2024 ruling that it replaced him with two co-deputy global heads. The Tribunal found that the bank failed on procedural grounds as it did not consult him at a formative stage, did not objectively score or pool him, and did not make a reasonable effort to place him in one of the many available alternative roles within the company.
While in the process of being laid off, it was found that the bank had expected him to secure a new internal role while he was still on parental leave. His manager later called him “lazy” for failing to find a job during this time, despite him pointing out to HR that his leave prevented him from job hunting.
A spokesperson for the bank said: “Goldman Sachs is a market leader in paid parental leave and encourages all working parents regardless of gender to take the full 26 weeks paid leave offered to them. We strongly disagree with this decision.”
Tribunal awards stigma damages
Earlier this week, a judge awarded him £1.45m, a figure reached after applying a deduction because the Tribunal concluded there was a 50 per cent likelihood he would have fairly been made redundant regardless. The payout includes damages for injury to feelings, lost earnings, a penalty against Goldman for failing to follow fair procedures, and compensation for “stigma” across London’s financial sector.
It was noted that Reeves’s legal action had severely hampered his efforts to secure another role in the City.
Reeves’s lawyer, Jo Keddie of Forsters, added: “For senior professionals in regulated industries, litigation can have profound career implications and this case demonstrates that the tribunal will recognise this where supported by clear and compelling evidence.”