London: Firm pays off twins in discrimination case

Two Muslim sisters have won a multi-million pound settlement on the verge of an explosive tribunal which threatened to make public claims of widespread drug abuse and racial bigotry in the City.


Samira and Hanan Fariad, 31, had made sensational claims that top brokers used cocaine, and subjected them to unbearable levels of race and religious discrimination.


They alleged that former bosses at Tradition Securities and Futures turned a blind eye to the deplorable behaviour.


The French twins, who both earned six figure sums, are believed to have secured a record payout after demanding up to £10million in compensation.


Their evidence was to have begun this week and had been expected to cause huge embarrassment to the City at a time when the industry's reputation is at an all-time low.


But the case was dramatically halted after the French firm – which had already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to keep the identities of its leading employees secret – agreed an out-of-court settlement.


The sisters had made 200 separate allegations against the bank and the hearing was due to last a record 55 days at the Central London Employment Tribunal.


Samira was preparing to submit a 150-page witness statement. The Daily Mail has learned that it included allegations that executives removed the women's Jewish clients and transferred them to non-Muslim colleagues.


One of the sisters alleged that a client working for a big bank was allocated to a Jewish colleague because the two 'had in common both language and race', according to submissions for the case.


'The removal of certain clients from the claimants . .. might have been because the claimants are Muslim and because they are women,' the document says.


Tradition's parent company, Compagnie Financiere Tradition, is one of the world's largest broker firms with a 2007 turnover of £770million.


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Source: Daily Mail (English)

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