Female lawyer who says boss joked abut hole in her trousers loses case

A female investment manager who took her company to court after a joke about a hole in her trousers has lost her sexual discrimination tribunal case. 

Jessica Liew, 32, alleged that her finance firm's vice-president Magnus Zuther responded to her 'wardrobe malfunction' by calling it 'one way to get a promotion'.

Employment judge Natasha Joffe described the remark as a 'clearly gendered' jibe and suggested she had been sexually discriminated against at worldwide investment company Aurelius Group.

But two other employment tribunal panel members, both men, have disagreed and said she should have reported it at the time if anything happened - and her claims of sexual discrimination have now been rejected by a central London court.

Ms Liew, who had a £115,000 a year salary, was the first and only woman in a team of more than 100 at the company - where she said there was a 'toxic and misogynistic' work environment.

She gave examples of her boss thanking her for getting 'all dressed up for me' at a meeting and commenting that the hole in her trousers was 'some air conditioning going through your pants'.

Yet the panel's majority verdict ruled that the promotion comment was not said and that Mr Zuther pointing out the hole was simply a 'humorous way of addressing an awkward issue'.

The Central London Tribunal Court hearing was told Ms Liew started working for the investment group in September 2021.

Ms Liew, originally from California, worked predominantly in Doncaster.

The case heard that Mr Zuther 'regularly' commented on her appearance and said she looked 'nice'.

In late 2022, she said he told her, 'You look very nice', during a meeting, before adding, 'Thanks for getting all dressed up for me'.

Despite earning 80 per cent of her available bonus and being handed another £3,000, she was hauled in for a performance review meeting in January last year which she described as 'unfair'.

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The panel heard that during a hot meeting in May last year, Mr Zuther saw a hole in the side of her trousers and said: 'Well, it looks like you have some air conditioning going through your pants. I guess that is one way to ask for a promotion.'

The hearing was told the hole - on the seam of her trousers - was small, about the size of a 10p coin.

Ms Liew claimed that for Mr Zuther - who denied making the comment - to have noticed it so quickly, he must have been 'staring at my body intently'.

In June last year, her contract was terminated by bosses and she was sent a letter informing her she was to receive a £14,307 bonus - however, when she took them to a tribunal, this was rescinded.

Employment Judge Joffe has now ordered Aurelius to pay the bonus but Ms Liew's claims of sex discrimination and harassment were dismissed.

Judge Joffe said of the alleged 'promotion' comment: 'It was too singular a remark to have been a misunderstanding of something else said by Mr Zuther.

'She was, at the time this incident occurred, hoping to move to a new role away from Mr Zuther and it was understandable that she would want to keep her head down.

'We considered that a suggestion that exposing part of the body might be a way of seeking a promotion was clearly gendered.

'There is a common trope that women use sex to achieve job promotion (the 'casting couch') and we considered it improbable that Mr Zuther would have made a similar remark about a man.'

But she said the panel did not have 'the sort of broad evidence' required to make any finding on whether there was a 'toxic and misogynistic' culture as claimed.

Regarding the 'dressing up' comment, the panel were split.

The judgment said: 'We bear in mind that it is often difficult to raise a complaint of this sort and that [Ms Liew] said that she did not want to rock the boat as she was hoping to move on in the company.

'Ultimately the majority (Mr Madelin and Mr de Chaumont Rambert) reached a different conclusion from the minority (Judge Joffe) on this issue, in circumstances where the entire panel felt we were working with very limited evidence and that the conclusion was finely balanced.'

The two male panel members considered the lack of contemporaneous complaint by Ms Liew to be 'significant'.

However, Judge Joffe - who found that the remark had been made - said: 'There was nothing about her evidence which suggested she would simply invent these incidents.

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'In context what was said was probably intended, misguidedly, to be a pleasantry by Mr Zuther.'

On the hole in trousers comment, the panel's judgment said: 'The tribunal majority considered that they were not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the remark about promotion was made, although, like the minority, they accepted that the remark about "air conditioning" was made.

'It was a jokey way of referring to a wardrobe malfunction.

'The fact that [Ms Liew] said she had stopped biting her tongue by this point but did not raise the remark with anyone else was a significant factor in rejecting her account about the promotion remark.'

The two male panel members said due to the 'the strength of feeling of the remark was said to have caused', she 'would have mentioned it' if it at the time if it actually happened.

However, Judge Joffe found 'the most likely reason' for the different accounts was that Mr Zuther had forgotten what he considered an inconsequential piece of 'banter' at the time.

The panel unanimously found the air conditioning comment had been made and was a 'humorous way of addressing an awkward issue'.

They said: 'We were satisfied that Mr Zuther had benign and non-gendered reasons for raising it, although on Judge Joffe's alternative finding, he then went too far in making a joke about promotion which was sex-specific.'