BX Blackstone Inc

By Christina Rexrode 

A Bank of America Corp. executive accused her employer of misleading trading clients, in a lawsuit in which she called the bank a "bros club" and said it discriminated against her for being a woman.

The lawsuit by Megan Messina, 42 years old and a managing director in Bank of America's structured credit products division, said that when she raised concerns about her treatment and allegedly questionable treatment of clients, the bank tried to push her out. She is now on administrative leave.

A Bank of America spokesman said Tuesday that "we take all allegations of inappropriate behavior seriously and investigate them thoroughly." He added that the bank disputed allegations in the suit about business with Pacific Investment Management Co.

The lawsuit described alleged instances of misconduct in recent months, including colleagues allegedly front-running trades by clients including Citigroup Inc., and allegedly withholding information from client Blackstone Group LP.

A representative for Citigroup declined to comment. A representative for Blackstone didn't immediately comment.

The suit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

According to Ms. Messina's suit, the bank twice sent executives to apologize to clients, once after client Anchorage Capital Group complained that the bank knowingly provided false data and once after a bank employee allegedly "doctored" the Pimco trading records.

Representatives for Pimco, a unit of Allianz SE, and Anchorage declined to comment.

"We fully dispute the allegations in this complaint regarding the Pimco transaction in 2015," a Bank of America spokesman said.

The lawsuit by Ms. Messina, a single mother of three children, opens with allegations of gender discrimination. It said her boss excluded her from emails, meetings and other gatherings while including her male peers and her clients. Over the course of about a year, her boss met as often as three times a day with the man who shared with Ms. Messina co-head responsibilities for a department, but only met twice with her, according to the suit.

In their first meeting, he asked her, "Have you colored your hair?" and "Have your eyes always been that blue?" according to the lawsuit.

In their second meeting, about 10 months later, her boss told her that she outperformed her co-head on client surveys and informal customer feedback, but she received a bonus of $1.55 million while he received a bonus of $5.5 million, the lawsuit alleged.

According to the suit, Ms. Messina's boss's revenue-producing direct reports included her -- the only woman -- and 10 male colleagues. She received a total of $2 million for 2015, while nine of those men made between $3 million and $6.5 million in total, the lawsuit said. One male peer made less than her, $1.5 million. The lawsuit doesn't specify a source for the figures.

Ms. Messina joined Bank of America in 2007 after nearly a decade at Salomon Smith Barney. The lawsuit estimated that she has been underpaid by $8.25 million during her time at Bank of America.

Ms. Messina also filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a complaint with the Labor Department alleging whistleblower retaliation, the lawsuit said.

Write to Christina Rexrode at christina.rexrode@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 17, 2016 19:48 ET (23:48 GMT)

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