Employee pressures HSBC in sexual harassment case

An HSBC worker claims the bank giant denied him a bonus as part of an ongoing campaign of retaliation for speaking out about sexual harassment against a colleague, according to new court papers.

Michael Picarella, 47, sued his employer in Manhattan federal court earlier this year, claiming the firm demoted him after he reported sexual harassment allegations. He and another colleague said they raised alarm bells when a supervisor tried to force a female colleague to sleep with a senior banker.

Picarella, a senior vice president with the bank in New York, is seeking to amend his original complaint, saying the UK-based bank continues to take punitive actions, including denying him a bonus, according to a letter filed by his lawyer late Thursday.

“HSBC should not be allowed to conceal these retaliatory acts simply because they occurred outside the time period to amend the pleading,” Marc A. Susswein, a lawyer for Picarella, wrote in the letter.

HSBC denied Picarella a bonus on March 20 for his work in 2014 even through he has received every bonus every year since he started work at the bank in 2011, according to the proposed amended complaint.

Picarella said the bank also denied him access to the Midtown office where he worked and then cut off his access to the bank’s systems because he “allegedly conveyed confidential HSBC information to third parties not entitled to hold such information in violation of HSBC policies” — a charge the bank “failed to provide any factual basis for,” according to court papers.

An HSBC spokesman declined to comment.