Ex-Citi London forex trader welcomes unfair dismissal ruling
(Reuters) - A former top currency trader has won an unfair dismissal case against Citigroup Inc but cannot expect to return to his job, a London employment tribunal has ruled.
Rohan Ramchandani, the former European head of Citigroup's forex spot market trading desk, alleged in a lawsuit in October that the bank had dismissed him unfairly without due process or warning.
Ramchandani was seeking reinstatement, which would have made him eligible to receive back pay and any other awards.
However, employment judge Alison Russell said giving him his job back was not practicable as Citi had proved in the London tribunal that he had been dismissed due to his conduct, although the bank had failed to follow fair procedure.
Citi said in an emailed statement that it had already acknowledged that Ramchandani's dismissal did not follow its usual policy and was unsurprised by that aspect of the ruling.
It said it welcomed the tribunal's decision not to order his return to Citi employment.
Tribunal compensation for unfair dismissal is capped in Britain at 88,519 pounds, a fraction of the salary Ramchandani earned at Citi, but the exact amount due to the former trader was not disclosed.
"I am pleased that the tribunal has not only found that I was unfairly dismissed but that Citi acted unreasonably and so has awarded me the maximum uplift for such conduct," Ramchandani said in an email sent to Reuters.
"The tribunal also accepted my genuine belief that my chats were not improper."
Ramchandani is suing Citigroup for damages of $112 million in a separate lawsuit filed at the Southern District of New York, alleging that the bank made materially false and malicious statements to U.S. prosecutors that led to charges of foreign exchange rigging against him.
A date for the lawsuit brought by Ramchandani has yet to be fixed.
(Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Alexander Smith)
