Demands for sex, sexually explicit photographs, groping and the rubbing of genitalia against a female employee’s body are the latest revelations that continue to paint a bleak picture of corporate culture at the AMP.
The financial services behemoth’s reputation has received another blow following the reading of an explosive statement from a former AMP employee by Senator Deborah O’Neill that details a litany of abuses suffered at the hands of male colleagues.
O’Neill’s reading of the former employee’s statement follows the resignations of two AMP board members, David Murray and John Fraser, as a result of increasing investor and community concern about the way in which an executive, Boe Pahari, was promoted to run AMP Capital despite having had a sexual harassment complaint made against him by a former employee.
That complaint was found to have merit and Pahari was effectively ‘fined’ A$500,000.
Murray and Fraser departed AMP’s board on Monday following concerns about the unanimous decision to appoint of Pahari by the board to head AMP Capital. Pahari was demoted and Murray replaced by Debra Hazelton.
The Senate heard a statement that set down a litany of instances of sexual harassment that resulted in the employee leaving the company and the perpetrators of misconduct continuing their careers.
“During my tenure, I raised formal complaints with the company, including via external legal representatives, but none of these were resolved safely let alone satisfactorily. Two of these cases were escalated,” the former employee’s statement said.
“But in one instance the perpetrator was given a warning and allowed to remain. He also harassed another colleague, who left the industry as a result of this and sustained sexual harassment by two managers. The other, my manager, was repeatedly promoted.”
A litany of individual acts of harassment followed.
“The harassment I suffered ranged from receiving sexually explicit photos and emails expressing a desire to have sex with me, constant and public propositioning, including in front of some of the company's largest clients, physical harassment, including being touched repeatedly by a leadership team member at the office, a senior colleague groping me off site and another forcing himself on me by rubbing his genitals against me at a work function,” the former employee said.
“Finally and, in my experience, most egregiously, my direct manager threatened to end my career if I did not follow his sexual wishes while alone with him on a work trip. In this last experience, I felt in fear of my physical safety. I knew, as a woman does by a certain age, that I was at his physical mercy. My saving grace was that he was blind drunk and, as he went to pour himself another drink, I ran. I immediately called a friend. Distraught and terrified, I could not stop shaking.”
A complaint was made internally once legal advisers had suggested that court case would come with certain risks including unwanted publicity and high legal fees. The former employee – who is not named at any stage in the delivery of the remarks for reasons of confidentiality – painted a