HSBC Holdings PLC’s head of global markets, Thibaut de Roux, left the bank after a junior female employee accused him of inappropriate conduct at a hotel bar in New York City, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The London-based HSBC veteran allegedly behaved improperly with the employee, who flagged it to the lender’s human resources department in early summer, one of the people said.
HSBC has reported the incident to the UK financial services regulator, the person said, declining to be identified.
“An allegation was made against an individual,” HSBC said in a statement on Tuesday. “We dealt with it directly, robustly and appropriately.”
De Roux did not return calls and texts seeking comment.
The bank had announced in a memo to staff in mid-September that De Roux would be leaving the company and retiring from banking after 30 years in the industry.
Reported cases of alleged harassment have spread across business, including finance, building pressure on firms to step up their handling of misconduct claims.
Earlier this year, UBS Group AG said it would set up a confidential hotline for employees to flag sexual misconduct complaints, while Credit Suisse Group AG put in place new procedures to tackle incidents of sexual harassment.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Megan Butler last month told Bloomberg that some industry claims of misconduct were increasingly being escalated to her.
Butler, executive director of supervision for investment, wholesale and specialists at the FCA, said financial institutions are still unclear on which incidents should be investigated, prompting anxiety among management.
The FCA declined to comment on the HSBC matter.
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