Citigroup has won part of its appeal in a discrimination suit brought by a former banker who was laid off after being called “old” at the age of 55.
Niels Kirk, a managing director for Citi’s energy banking desk, previously won his unfair dismissal suit against the bank in 2020 and was awarded nearly £2.7 million ($3.2 million). But a U.K. appeal court ordered the case to be reheard, saying that the employment tribunal needed to reconsider whether the redundancy was prompted by ageism given a relatively small age gap between Kirk and a 51-year-old colleague.
Kirk, who’d been employed at the bank for 26 years, was awarded the payout after the judge ruled he wasn’t given any warning about a proposed restructuring. Kirk’s lawyers argued he had been the victim of ageist comments including when one of his bosses Manolo Falco told him he was “too old and set in his ways.”
Falco has denied making the comment though the judge handling the case later said “the remark appeared to the tribunal to be the kind of throwaway remark Mr. Falco could make.”
Lawyers for Citi appealed the decision at the Employment Appeal Tribunal. They argued that Kirk could not have been discriminated against based on age because the ensuing restructuring put a female colleague, aged 51, only a few years younger than him, at the head of the department.
The lawyers said the tribunal had not properly considered that Falco, the female colleague, and other members of their team thought of themselves as “roughly the same age or in the same age bracket” as Kirk. They claimed this made the age discrimination “implausible” or “fanciful.”
The appeal judges ruled that the the lower tribunal had not given due consideration to Citi’s evidence of the comparison between Kirk and his colleague’s age, according to a judgment made public Tuesday.
A spokesperson from Citi said it was “gratified” with the decision and it “overturns the tribunal’s decision that the termination of Mr. Kirk was discriminatory on the grounds of age.”
While at the bank, Kirk earned £937,000 in 2014, which later fell to £535,000 pounds in 2016, according to court documents.
Leigh Day, the law firm representing Kirk, declined to comment.
