McLaughlin, Macquarie's head of US sales for cash equities, is suing the bank for $US40 million ($53 million), claiming she was sidelined after making a sexual harassment complaint about her former boss. Loading Macquarie has accused her of misrepresenting her consensual affair with Robert Ansell, lying about it to extract a payout and launching a "misleading and salacious" lawsuit for publicity. The case comes months after Fairfax Media reported on accusations of a toxic alpha-male culture of harassment and predatory behaviour at Macquarie by former Australian clients. The bank denies the claims. McLaughlin joined Macquarie from Goldman Sachs in 2012 and rose through the ranks to lead a team of 19 with $US34 million in revenue, earning her an award from publisher Media Matters last year for women in finance.

The 40-year-old single mother met Ansell at the bank's Christmas party in 2014 and the married man became infatuated with her; on one occasion he seized an opportunity when he saw her crying in her office. "What good fortune! Now I had another reason to talk to you," he wrote in a letter to McLaughlin last year, contained in her court filings and reported on by Bloomberg in November before Macquarie successfully applied to have it sealed. Their relationship lasted from 2015 to 2017, during which time Ansell became her boss. He sent her photos of his penis, copies of which were included in her now-sealed complaint. "No one had ever said no to me in a long time," he wrote in a 2017 letter. "You tried so many times to reset the boundaries, but we just couldn't do it." Khristina McLaughlin won an award for women in finance. Credit:MarketsMedia.com

After Ansell's wife discovered messages on his phone last October, the affair ended and McLaughlin complained to the bank that she had been coerced into the relationship, fearing Ansell would take revenge if she ended it. A week later, Ansell, then the head of cash equities, left the company. In November, McLaughlin launched a lawsuit, alleging sexual discrimination and harassment, and claiming colleagues in the "mostly male, Aussie-dominated rough and sexist trading floor environment" had retaliated against her, including leaving her out of meetings and avoiding eye contact. Macquarie argued that the "inflammatory" case was launched for publicity and should be thrown out because McLaughlin signed a contract for her $US400,000-a-year job that said any grievances were to be resolved by confidential arbitration. The bank said it had conducted its own investigation, going through 32,000 text messages the pair exchanged over 811 days and concluding it "painted a diametrically opposing picture, that of a completely consensual relationship". She had sent roughly half, making "her strong emotional attachment and physical attraction to Ansell quite clear". An extract from Macquarie Bank's response to Ms McLaughlin's court filing.

McLaughlin launched an impassioned argument that confidential arbitration was yet another tool to silence women and favour powerful corporations or individuals, such as Harvey Weinstein. "With Weinstein being just one of hundreds of thousands of 'bosses', as ... Robert Ansell in this case is, it is easy to see the direct dangers of allowing cases involving sexual harassment ... to remain confidential under the guise of arbitrations," McLaughlin's lawyer, Jonathan Sack, wrote in one of dozens of court filings collated by Fairfax Media. Five months later, after McLaughlin had spent $US6000 on failed mediation, the case took another dramatic turn. While she was on holiday in April, McLaughlin was told that another staff member would conduct her end-of-year appraisals as some of her team had complained about her. She shot back an email: "This is a set up and you know it. And because I did not simply accept the paltry 1/2 severance policy of $73,000 to go away, I need to suffer the indignation of this blatant retaliation?"

She met the bank's US head of human resources, Austin Dowling, who, according to Dowling's affidavit, outlined complaints against her including using negative nicknames, making an ageist comment and making a junior female worker uncomfortable by talking about Ansell. "Their complaints ... were outright lies," McLaughlin wrote in an affidavit. "To date in my over six years at Macquarie, this was the very first I was hearing of any such concerns." The bank said McLaughlin's "extortionary approach came to a head" in the meeting with Dowling; she warned that she wasn't going away for a "measly" severance package. McLaughlin said she was made a pariah in Macquarie Bank's "mostly male, Aussie-dominated rough and sexist trading floor environment". Credit:Tamara Voninski Dowling claimed she asked verbally to be put on paid leave, backed up by an employee who heard her shouting "I can’t work here any more."

A week later, Dowling emailed to say her leave had been approved and her IT and office access would be suspended. McLaughlin replied that she had been emotional during the meeting due to the "lies" he had shared and she made no leave request. Her lawyer advised her she should keep turning up for work, she wrote. "I made no such formal request ... This was a total setup," she emailed from her personal account. "These actions are being taken totally against my will." Dowling argued that it was clear she held contempt for the bank and didn't want to be there. The following day, she arrived for work and, despite being locked out, managed to get into the morning sales meeting. After the meeting, a manager took her aside and said: "It's best if you go home."

Macquarie said she then sat in the lobby, creating a "public spectacle". "I sat in the ... lobby because I was not sure what to do next," McLaughlin said in her affidavit. "I was waiting to get in touch with my lawyer. I was probably there five minutes." Her clients in the US equities market have since learnt she is no longer covering them, she said. "This causes rumours to swirl, and my good standing in the industry ... to be adversely and irreparably damaged."