'Too ugly' banker wins £15million

Laura Zubulake, 44, a former director for the bank's Asian shares sales desk in New York, sued the Swiss financial giant after being told by a male executive she was too "old and ugly and she can't do the job".

She was fired in 2001 from a job she had begun in 1999.

The jury in Manhattan decided she should receive £4.8 million in compensation and a further £10.7 million in punitive damages.

Zubulake said she hoped the verdict would encourage "all women on Wall Street who experience similar things".

UBS argued that Zubulake was not discriminated against because she was a woman but because she "had performance problems" and was not a team player.

"She did not improve and she didn't even acknowledge that there was a problem that she needed to address," the bank's lawyer argued.

The jury believed Zubulake's version of events.

During her earlier evidence Zubulake said she was "appalled" to have been invited by a male superior to a strip club in Boston. She also testified that she was belittled by her boss in front of co-workers and denied lucrative client accounts.

Zubulake also said she had been discriminated against by being excluded from events to which the firm's clients had been invited. She said they included "more than one baseball game" and two golf outings.

She claimed that trips to strip clubs were on company expenses. She said: "One of my colleagues was expensing a client outing to Scores," - a strip club in New York to

which she was not invited. She said she was fired because she complained to US employment regulators.

UBS is to appeal, saying the amount awarded to Zubulake is "excessive".

There has been a flood of similar cases in recent years on both sides of the Atlantic.

While similar sex discrimination cases are on the rise in Britain, damages have been much lower.

Schroders, for example, was forced to pay City analyst Julie Bower ?1.5 million in 2002 for being paid less than equivalent male colleagues.

In America Morgan Stanley recently settled a sex discrimination case by former bond trader Allison Schieffelin for £28.4 million just as it was about to go to trial. That covered up to 340 women employees - Schieffelin herself received £6.3 million - who, it was alleged, had been systematically denied promotion and pay increases.

Morgan Stanley denied any wrongdoing but agreed to change working practices.