BNP Paribas SA settled a sex discrimination lawsuit with an executive who said a colleague called her a “princess” behind her back, according to people familiar with the matter.
The bank has reached an agreement with Angelina Georgievska, who was head of its corporate derivatives group for central and eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. The terms of the agreement are confidential, the people said.
During the trial, Georgievska said she’d found out around November 2015 that her boss, Regis Pecheux, had used the term “princess” about her. “I found this term very offensive and undermining,” she said. Pecheux told the London employment tribunal he’d used the term “jokingly” and didn’t think it belittled her. He’d also called her “choupette,” a French word roughly equivalent to “sweetie” or “darling,” he said.
The case shed light on life inside at least a part of the bank. “Trading floors are sometimes not particularly civil environments,” Pecheux said in his witness statement for the hearing in December. “Aggression, dark humor and sarcasm are on display every day, which makes it an unusual, if never boring, working environment.”