By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Nomura Securities was sued in New York by a former quantitative researcher who said she was underpaid relative to men and fired after insisting that her team "should stop discriminating against women."
Xue Feng filed her lawsuit on Monday in federal court in Manhattan, seeking unspecified damages for alleged violations of federal civil rights, equal pay and medical leave laws, and New York state and city human rights laws.
Feng, who is known Heidi, said she had worked in Nomura's otherwise all-male Global Equities Digital Office, which she joined in August 2020 as an associate quantitative researcher after holding a similar job at JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM).
The Manhattan resident said her former boss once acknowledged that she was "underpaid" relative to men.
She also said Nomura gave her an unfair performance review and began ignoring her after concluding that her medical tests for possible cancer kept her out of the office too often.
Feng said she was fired last July 29, ostensibly in a reorganization, after she mentioned discrimination in an internal survey about the workplace, and gave negative feedback about two managers. No one else lost their jobs, she said.
Nomura said the lawsuit had no merit. "The claimant was not subjected to unlawful discrimination, and the company intends to defend vigorously against allegations to the contrary," it said in a statement.
Many banks have taken steps to make their workplaces more inclusive.
Nomura's Tokyo-based parent Nomura Holdings (NYSE:NMR) pledges on its website not to tolerate gender discrimination in employment.
In a 2022 report cited in the complaint, Nomura acknowledged paying men more than women in other parts of the world, but said it had made progress in closing the pay gap.
Feng's lawyer Brendan Sweeney said his client's case could show similar disparities in the United States.
"Nomura had different rules for men and women," Sweeney said. "The only person impacted by its reorganization was the only woman, who had complained about discrimination."
The case is Feng v. Nomura Securities International Inc, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 24-00467.