Lawyer wins restraining order against company over her dismissal

A derivatives lawyer with GE Financial Markets who made a complaint alleging bullying and harassment by several senior managers has secured an interim High Court order restraining her dismissal.

The "absolutely startling thing" is that Lorraine Morris has "no clue" why she was dismissed, her counsel Richard Kean SC told Ms Justice Iseult O'Malley yesterday. The procedure leading to her without warning dismissal was unfair and flawed, he added.

The judge granted interim orders, returnable to May 29th, restraining the company dismissing Ms Morris, purporting to terminate her employment contract.

Ms Morris, a mother of one of Sutton Park, Sutton has sued the company over a decision made last Monday, May 13th, dismissing her with three months paid notice.

In an affidavit, Ms Morris said she is a derivatives lawyer with extensive experience who is on the roll of solicitors in Ireland, England and Wales and a member of the New York State Bar Association.

She took up employment with the company in September 2010 on the basis she was being offered a secure, permanent and pensionable position and her employment would not be terminated without good reason, she said.

Around July 2012, she reluctantly made a formal complaint under the company’s anti-bullying and harassment policy alleging she was subject by various named individuals, including superiors, to a campaign of bullying and harassment intended to undermine and demean her, she said.

Those individuals included Chinmay Trivedi, general manager of the defendant and certain GE Corporate Treasury senior employees – Renuka Gupta, Valerie Nelson and Peter Cooke, she said.

The alleged campaign against her was also clearly motivated by her decision, as counsel, to distribute the company’s anti-bullying policy to its leadership team, she said. She also alleged an appraisal of her performance by her superiors was unfair and a deliberate attempt to demean her. A fellow employee had told her there was a concerted effort by certain individuals to manage her out of the business, she said.