A FORMER senior woman executive at listed funds manager Perpetual is suing it for $1.2 million, alleging she was bullied by the company while pregnant and on maternity leave.
Fiona Dunn, who was earning $672,000 a year as general manager of Perpetual's wholesale division, went on maternity leave in February last year but has not returned because her job disappeared in a restructuring in September.
Last week, PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Christina Rich settled a sexual discrimination claim against her employer.
Two months after Ms Dunn's job was made redundant, she lodged a sex discrimination complaint with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
A mediation hearing in January failed to resolve her claims and the case will now be heard in the Federal Court.
Ms Dunn alleged there was a boys' club culture at Perpetual and there was a perception that women with families should stay at home and could not work in senior positions.
In documents filed with the court, she said her immediate supervisor, Gerard Doherty, made "unsavoury comments about my being pregnant" and treated her "less favourably".
She initially took action in the commission against Mr Doherty and Perpetual's chief executive, David Deverall, but withdrew claims against them to focus on the company in the Federal Court.
Ms Dunn said Mr Doherty, who has become managing director of the local arm of the US fund manager Fidelity Investments, complained about women with young families who worked part-time, saying to her: "If women want to compete with the men, they have to play like the men."
Ms Dunn said in her complaint: "Never before in my 22 years' experience in the financial services sector have I ever contemplated that my career would be affected by becoming a mother."
She believed she had been a highly regarded employee and had been lured to work for the company with a $444,000 sign-on incentive when she was poached from Macquarie Bank in 2004, she said. Before taking leave to have her first child last year, she said, she was "treated less favourably" and had "bullying and discriminating remarks made to me because of my pregnancy".
She said she was threatened before going on maternity leave that her job would be removed as part of a restructuring.
She is now unemployed and says it will take her up to 18 months to find a job in a lower-paying position and up to four years to find a similarly high-paying one.
Perpetual has not yet filed a defence to the claims.
The case will return to court for a hearing on May 2.
