Recently, a central London Employment Tribunal heard the case of Adam Glover Bailie v Archer Daniels Midland Investor Services Ltd and Fabian Somerville-Cotton, in which Mr Bailie - a trader in a UK brokerage - alleged discrimination because of his disability.
Mr Bailie - who had worked for Archer Daniels Midland Investor Services Ltd for 22 years - and was the head of equities and fixed income, claimed that he had been marginalised within the company after he had a mental health breakdown. He filed for “disability discrimination, harassment and victimisation” against ADM Ltd and his manager Mr Somerville-Cotton - claiming his depression was triggered by work stress.
The Employment Tribunal judgement found that the Respondents did, in fact, discriminate against Mr Bailie because of his disability and the case will now progress to a two-day remedy hearing in January 2020.
In January 2018, Mr Bailie was diagnosed with clinical depression. In February, 2018 he was working excessively long hours to manage funds of the company and clients during wild swings in the markets. He was then prescribed anti-depressants and in May, he was given temporary medical leave for work-related stress, a situation which became permanent in August 2018. He has not worked since.
At the start of 2018, as head of the company’s global equity and fixed income divisions, he oversaw a period of market volatility. He claimed - in his witness statement - that from November 2017 he had grown increasingly concerned about a lack of stress testing by the firm’s risk division - which was designed to protect the brokerage from heavy losses. He told the hearing that “I was concerned that clients had positions that were too big and our lack of risk meant we couldn’t reduce them.”
At about 2am on February 6 - when markets had worsened - Mr Bailie said that he went to the office to “undertake urgent damage limitation on behalf of clients” but by 5.30am several clients were insolvent and facing losses of about $10m. In his witness statement he stated:
“My direct intervention in manually calculating and trading over the course of the two days considerably reduced the losses to the firm and the clients, which had the potential of running into hundreds of millions of pounds.”
In 2017, after Mr Bailie’s promotion to run the department, he had told the head of Human Resources about his stress and breakdown. He claimed that this head was hostile towards him and unsupportive after he was diagnosed as unfit for work.
Mr Bailie stated that his senior manager Mr Somerville-Cotton told his colleagues in an email that he - Mr Bailie - would continue in a senior leadership role, but that another employee would take on the role of co-head of the department with overall responsibility of the team. Mr Bailie stated that he found out about the change from colleagues while he was away. This action was in direct contrast to an assurance he had previously received from HR and felt that he was being driven out by Mr Somerville-Cotton.
The Employment Tribunal read the minutes of meetings and conversations over the last two years and found that the Respondents did discriminate against Mr Bailie because of his mental health disability and did treat him unfavourably because of “something arising in consequence of his disability” i.e. his absence from work.
Mr Bailie was represented by Irwin Mitchell, who stated that Mr Bailie was “delighted his case has been successful, not only for himself but for other workers in the industry who suffer from stress and anxiety created by a hostile and unsupportive working environment and culture.”
They further stated “This is a major step forward and will be a timely reminder to the financial services industry that it now must safeguard its workers' mental health and well-being.”
