After just seven months on the job, a lawyer working for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was fired in 2012. There was no grace period, either. Her bosses simply told her that she wasn’t trustworthy. Her phone was taken from her, and security officers for the FRBNY escorted her out of the building.
According to the woman, she was wrongfully terminated. She says her dismissal was because she would not change the findings of an investigation into Goldman Sachs. If her findings had been formalized, Goldman Sachs would have been in even more trouble than they already were.
The lawsuit was filed last week in a Manhattan district court. This suit provides us with a look into the financial reforms that occurred after the recession in 2008. The lawyer is a regulatory compliance expert, and with her accounts of what transpired, she was about to provide mounds of evidence to support her claims.
The FRBNY hasn’t responded to questions but said that the “Personnel decisions at the New York Fed are based exclusively on individual job performance and are subject to thorough review.” In addition, the spokesman said that any suggestion otherwise is “categorically rejected.”
Until now, the termination of the lawyer was not public knowledge. She had been assigned to review and assess the conflict-of-interest policies at Goldman Sachs. She was also looking closely at several deals, one of which was the merger in 2012 between Kinder Morgan and El Paso Corp.
The lawyer claims that she found evidence that Goldman Sachs claimed that a transaction with Santander had been approved by the FRBNY. However, that was not true. She also claims that her supervisor told her that she was not to discuss the matter.
Wrongful termination lawsuits help those who have been subjected to unfair practices at work, resulting in an employee’s dismissal. Attorneys specializing in employment law can advise you on your options in such a case.
Source:
psmag.com, “Wrongful Termination Suit Offers an Inside Look at How the Fed Handled ‘Too Big to Fail’ Banks” Jake Bernstein, Oct. 18, 2013
