Former Imperial Capital Bank Executive Wins Over $900,000 in 'Glass Ceiling' Gender Discrimination Award According to The Execut
15 Febbraio 2006 - 3:00PM
PR Newswire (US)
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Feb. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- On December 30,
2005, after battling for a year and a half, Bobbi Koehler, a former
female executive of Imperial Capital Bank, a wholly-owned
subsidiary of ITLA Capital Corporation (ITLA), the largest
financial institution headquartered in San Diego County, won
vindication and an award of over $900,000 on a claim of unlawful
gender discrimination based on ITLA's failure to consider her for
promotion above the level of First Vice President. The award, which
makes final the interim award that issued on November 17, 2005,
includes damages of more than $500,000 and attorneys fees and costs
of more than $430,000. Issued by an arbitrator from the Orange
County office of JAMS Endispute, the Hon. Richard Neal (Ret.), a
retired Justice of the California Court of Appeal, the award
rejected ITLA's claim that Ms. Koehler's nonpromotion was due to
business reasons and not gender discrimination. The award is not
subject to appeal. R. Craig Scott, CEO of the Newport Beach-based
Executive Law Group, represented Ms. Koehler. Richard A. Paul and
Kari D. Searles of the San Diego-based law firm of Paul, Plevin,
Sullivan & Connaughton LLP represented Imperial Capital Bank
and ITLA. "We are grateful that Justice Neal accepted the
underlying theory of Ms. Koehler's case, which was that ITLA,
through the actions of its Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of
the Board, George Haligowski, Vice Chairman and Chief Credit
Officer, Norval Bruce and other senior executives, established and
maintained what his Honor conservatively described in the award as
a "corporate bias against promoting women" and held Imperial
Capital Bank and ITLA accountable," said attorney Scott. "During
her tenure with Imperial Capital Bank, Ms. Koehler was repeatedly
passed over for promotion, despite her vocal opposition to its
conspicuous 'glass ceiling,' while other male First Vice Presidents
(and no females) with lower performance ratings and less management
experience were given promotions and less qualified male job
candidates were hired to fill more senior open positions for which
ITLA gave Ms. Koehler no consideration. As Ms. Koehler found out,
ITLA utilizes a 'tap-on-the-shoulder' promotion system, where
networking among the male executives in a 'boys club' atmosphere is
more important than an employee's performance or relevant job
experience. The result: as his Honor observed in the award,
although women make up more than half of the workforce of Imperial
Capital Bank, their numbers shrink considerably at the higher
levels of management without regard to seniority or performance.
"One can only wonder how many current and former female associates
of the bank had experiences similar to mine, and will now feel that
they, too, should come forward," observed Ms. Koehler. During a 5
1/2 day arbitration hearing before Justice Neal, evidence was
introduced that ITLA's "corporate bias against promoting women" is
rooted in an even more disturbing form of gender discrimination,
which manifested itself in the official tolerance of sexual
harassment and alcohol abuse by members of its male-dominated
senior management team at business events. As an example, in the
award Justice Neal described in detail an instance in which an
intoxicated male senior executive perpetrated "outrageous
harassment" against a female subordinate during a company event. He
was not only accorded what his Honor described as "highly lenient
treatment" by CEO George Haligowski, but he was promoted by Mr.
Haligowksi to an even more senior management position shortly after
the female victim complained to the Bank's Human Resources
department. "One would have thought that this sort of misconduct by
senior executives in the banking industry went out with the Savings
& Loan scandals of the 1980s," said attorney Scott. In the
award, his Honor also noted a pattern of sexually degrading remarks
made by other senior ITLA executives, which disparaged the fitness
of women per se to hold senior management positions at the Bank.
This discriminatory bias is even reflected in the composition of
ITLA's board of directors, which has never had a female member.
Almost as disturbing, CEO Haligowski admitted under
cross-examination that, although he touts his Harvard education and
his curriculum vitae suggests that he holds academic degrees from
other prestigious universities, he actually has no undergraduate
degree, nor any post-secondary school academic degrees. "I was led
to believe that he graduated from an Ivy League school, earned an
M.B.A. from Harvard and had completed post-graduate work at other
top schools," Ms. Koehler said. "I was shocked to learn that this
was not true. What would the shareholders think if they knew? ITLA
is a public company and an FDIC-insured financial institution. I
can't imagine that something like this doesn't violate the
company's Code of Business Conduct and Ethics." "This award
reaffirms that the California and federal laws prohibiting
employment discrimination remain vital to ensuring that women have
access to workplaces in the banking industry that are free of
unlawful gender discrimination," Scott said. DATASOURCE: Executive
Law Group, Inc. CONTACT: Philip Koehler, +1-949-725-4180, or cell,
+1-714-785-1181, , or , for Executive Law Group, Inc.; or R. Craig
Scott of Executive Law Group, Inc., +1-949-222-0166,
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