Trader Who Was Fired for Sending Client Data to His Yahoo Mail Sued HSBC

Ben Lazimy was a trader in HSBC and he was fired after sending client data to his personal Yahoo Mail in 2010. Recently, he sued the bank for unfair dismissal. While HSBC has been very sensitive to its data protection since the Herve Falciani's case in 2008.

Lawyer for HSBC Clarisse Lebigot on Friday told a Paris employment tribunal that HSBC was fully justified for firing Lazimy. It is because the data Lazimy was sending is a confidential data. According to Bloomberg, In 2010, Ben Lazimy sent a 1,400-page spreadsheet listing all the bank's equities transactions in 2010 that included client names and margins.

"The data was confidential and key to the business," said Lebigot.

Ben Lazimy was suing the bank for unfair dismissal and requesting a €2.3 million($2.6 million) in a lawsuit. Lazimy's lawyer Jamila El Berry said that the email incident was only an excuse to fire him for refusing to be transferred to London from Paris following internal restructurization.

The lawyer of the former derivative trader at HSBC said the spreadsheet document was widely available within banks, even to interns. Therefore, according to Deal Breaker, El Berry said that her client did not breach professional secrecy, as the document never got into any outsider's hands. Furthermore, according to police report, the attachment was found damaged and unusable.

Throughout Europe, it is common for traders who are fired to turn to specialist labor courts. The fired traders make a bid to to recoup lost bonuses and rehabilitate their tarnished reputations. Last week in London, a foreign-exchange trader at Citigroup Inc., who was suspended during maternity leave was declared to win her employment suit.

Lazimy who was fired for his misconduct is expected to win his €2.3 million($2.6 million) lawsuit. However, HSBC lawyer said that his demand was an absurd request for someone who only worked at the bank for less than six years.

HSBC has been very sensitive to its data protection. Especially, as Chicago Tribune reported, after former employee, Herve Falciani, took client data from HSBC private banking unit in Swiss. The data proved how HSBC was helping its foreign clients to evade taxes.

Based on the data from Falciani, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published the report, which was known as Swiss Leaks, in 2015 and subsequently made a global headline. ICIJ is also the consortium who published the Panama leaks document. While following the ICIJ report, Swiss court sentenced Herve Falciani to five years in prison for aggravated industrial espionage in November last year.

HSBC decided to prevent another leak, therefore it fired Ben Lazimy. The former derivative trader was sending client data to his personal Yahoo Mail in 2010. Lazimy sued the company for unfair dismissal and request €2.3 million ($2.6 million) from the bank.

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HSBC, trader, Ben Lazimy, Yahoo

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