A female broker claims the “toxic alliance” between her financial services company and Citigroup enabled one of Wall Street’s blind traders to submit to four years of sexual harassment – with both companies allegedly ignoring her complaints, according to a lawsuit.
Christine O’Reilly, 31, said Citi’s Benjamin Waters tried to sneak into her hotel room after a company event at a trendy London bar, bombarded her with suggestive drunk calls and messages, and spread false rumors that she was having sex, according to the complaint. filed in Manhattan Federal court on Friday.
When she raised red flags about the trader’s alleged obsessive behavior to her supervisors at London-based TP ICAP, she was told to “put up with and play along with Mr. Waters to maintain a business relationship with Citi,” the lawsuit says.
She also reported Waters’ behavior to her boss at Citi, Bhavin Parikh, but to no avail, according to the complaint.
“The parallel failures of Citi and ICAP have created an interrelated hostile work
an environment where Mr. Waters, as an employee of Citi, can freely harass O’Reilly, an ICAP.
employees, with the knowledge and facilitation of ICAP’s senior management,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit is the latest sexual harassment scandal to hit Citi after a series of complaints about the behavior of its executives and how it treated female high-flyers – including a case brought last year by managing director Ardith Lindsey that is still in court in New York. York.
Waters was not named in O’Reilly’s complaint, but it alleges Citi allowed Waters to “extract improper personal favors from brokers.”
It is also the name of ICAP and one of her supervisors, Janie McCathie.
However, O’Reilly described in his lawsuit how Waters, a London-based broker who worked at the Delta One bank desk, allegedly first “created an inappropriate personal interest” in O’Reilly in February 2020 at Ned, high-end. bars and restaurants in London’s financial district.
Waters is accused of making sexually suggestive comments at a company event at the popular club before following him back to the hotel, where he allegedly tried to break into O’Reilly’s room.
The obsession continued with text messages on WhatsApp and social media throughout 2020 and 2021, the lawsuit said.
Last September, O’Reilly posted a string of photos on Instagram to which Waters allegedly replied: “Nice legs,” according to court exhibits of the text messages.
O’Reilly then replied: “What do you want Ben – all the messages that remain irrelevant? I can’t make it clear that I didn’t give—- enough… or what?”
They also claimed Waters, originally from Auckland, New Zealand, was persistent with unwanted advances even though he reported to his immediate supervisor.
One of the bosses, McCathie, insisted the broker “tolerated and played along with Mr. Waters to maintain a business relationship with Citi,” according to the complaint.
Her lawsuit alleges that her supervisor “connected her work with the need to tolerate sexual harassment.”
Images of text messages between the pair show that McCathie told O’Reilly “you have to play the game” in July 2022.
After O’Reilly blocked Waters on WhatsApp and restricted him on Instagram, McCathie told him to unblock him, the lawsuit alleges.
Waters later allegedly threatened to cut all business ties with ICAP as a result of O’Reilly’s complaint.
“I’m trading less because of you,” McCathie wrote to him on WhatsApp last September after O’Reilly threatened to go to the company’s compliance department, the complaint said.
The lawsuit describes how McCathie told O’Reilly at a conference in February to “get yourself out” and that he was “useless.”
He then allegedly wrote in an internal chat that everyone at the London and New York desks could read that O’Reilly was a “joke” and “mental”.
The Post has reached out to McCathie for comment.
O’Reilly did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.
She has been on leave from ICAP after reporting four years of abuse to her human resources manager last March.
A Citi spokeswoman declined to comment but confirmed the two employees in O’Reilly’s lawsuit no longer work at the bank.
It is unclear when Waters and Parikh left Citi. Both LinkedIn profiles still need to be updated with the departure notice.
The Post has approached both men for comment.
A TP ICAP spokesperson told the Post: “TP ICAP’s policy is not to comment on pending litigation.”