Credit Suisse discriminated against top retail analyst Tony Shiret, tribunal rules

Shiret, a top retail analyst for more than 20 years who was ranked 79^th in the Retail Week Power List the year before he left Credit Suisse, is likely to be compensated  for loss of earnings which could run into seven figures.

In June 2011, Shiret was dismissed during a programme of redundancies. He was aged 55 at the time and had been employed by the bank for 18 years.

But on Friday night, Employment Judge Brown said that Steven East, the co-head of the Pan European equity department at Credit Suisse acted in a “discriminatory and unfair way” when he was assessing his performance in an exercise to reduce staff at his department, according to The Times.

The judge said Credit Suisse had failed to prove that Mr Shiret’s age was not part of the reason for his dismissal.

Judge Brown cited e-mails between East and the department’s co-head, Charlie Mills. In them reference was made to “knifing” Shiret. Judge Brown said this indicated they were planning to dismiss Shiret regardless of his performance.

Judge Brown said East was not a “credible witness” when talking about the emails.

She added that when assessing Shiret for his “potential” in the assessments carried out before the redundancy programme, the bank directly discriminated against him on age.

She also said Shiret had been “significantly older” than other employees in his division and she accepted that he had been treated less favourably than one of his younger colleagues, Assad Malic, in the same circumstances.

Shiret said he was pleased with the ruling. He told The Times: “One of the things we showed the tribunal was the redundancy rates at the bank. These showed that, last year 11% of those aged 30 to 34 were made redundant. That rose to 26% for those who were 45 to 49 and, for those who were 50-plus, it was 37%. Only 2% of employees were over 50.”

Shiret added: “I think you have to give people a chance to demonstrate that they can still do a job and not assume that, once they reach a certain age, they cannot do a job for you.

“The other side can argue that in this case it was a screw-up. But if you read the judge’s ruling, it looks more systemic.”

Shiret joined the Royal Bank of Scotland in a return to the City in November 2011 but left in April last year when the bank closed is European equities business.

He said since his departure he had spoken to up to 30 brokerages about the possibility of working for them but no job has yet materialised.