In the wake of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill passing into law, sweeping changes have been made to workers and employers rights.
A female bank executive has been awarded £4 million ($7.7m) in compensation after her boss repeatedly fobbed her off with the words: "Not now Stacey".
British broker Stacey Macken, 48, said she was routinely belittled by her male superiors, subjected to sexist pranks and paid hundreds and thousand less thanher male peers.
Her victory in Central London Employment Tribunal this week marked the end of a long battle against French bank BNP Paribas.
Macken's line boss, Denis Pihan, was singled out in the judgment for the infuriating and humiliating tactic he used to avoid interaction with her.
Stacey Macken was awarded more than $7 million in compensation after winning her sex discrimination claim against BNP Paribas. Photo / Supplied
Pihan would say: "Not now, Stacey" whenever Macken, a former vice president of Deutsche Bank with 28 years of industry experience, tried to talk to him. He did it so often it became a running joke with her colleagues, who began to make sarcastic comments about it.
Another boss, Matthew Pinnock, returned to the office after an evening of heavy drinking with male co-workers and pulled a stunt which left Macken "visibly upset".
"In October 2013 I was shocked to arrive at work to find a witch's hat on my desk and wondered what I had done to deserve this," she said in her statement of claim.
"I am aware Matt and a group of male colleagues who had been out drinking the night before had put it there. Matt's PA witnessed this. Matt has since denied this."
Pinnock's personal assistant, Georgina Chapman, confirmed the incident took place.
"A large Halloween-style black witch's hat was left on Stacey Macken's desk after some of the Prime Brokerage team, including Matthew Pinnock, had gone drinking at the pub towards the end of the day," she told the tribunal.
When Macken arrived for work the next day she was "visibly upset", telling Chapman she felt "really uncomfortable" working with the male colleagues in question, the tribunal heard.
Following that incident, which happened shortly after she joined BNP Paribas, Macken's working conditions continued to deteriorate. She made a series of internal complaints about her treatment, which she said only led to more unfair treatment, before finally taking the bank to the tribunal in March this year.
Denis Pihan. Photo / Supplied
She was paid £120,000 a year in her role as a London-based broker but later discovered a male recruit with the same job title and responsibilities was being paid a whopping £40,000 more than her.
In another example of unequal pay presented to the tribunal, the male peer was paid more than £167,000 in bonuses compared to the £33,000 she received.
In previous hearings, BNP Paribas tried to justify the discrepancy by claiming it hired Macken as a "junior" and the male colleague was in fact her superior.
Matthew Pinnock put a witch's hat on Stacey Macken's desk after a drunken night out with male co-workers. Photo / Supplied
But the tribunal ruled BNP Paribas failed to adequately explain why the male worker received so much more when they both received the same grade in performance reviews, ruling Macken had been victimised and treated unfairly because she was a woman.
"Leaving a witch's hat on a female employees desk, in a predominantly male working environment, was an inherently sexist act that potentially reflects on the nature of (the) working environment for the Claimant and the approach that was taken to women," the judgment said.
The tribunal also condemned Pihan's repeated use of the phrase "not now, Stacey" when talking to her, concluding it was "a demeaning comment that was made so regularly that it was a source of comment by (Macken's) colleagues."
"We consider that the victimisation of the Claimant for raising complaints of discrimination is an act extending over a period involving the hostility of Pihan and Pinnock to the Claimant raising the complaint and those involved in investigating the Claimant's complaints, shutting them down and failing to properly investigate her core complaints of unequal pay and sex discrimination in bonus payments."
