Ex-Goldman Sachs executive wins sex discrimination claim worth £1.45 million: implications for risk and compliance professionals

This article was first published by the Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence on 21 September 2026.

A former Goldman Sachs executive has been awarded £1.45 million by an employment tribunal after it found he had been unfairly dismissed and subjected to sex discrimination following a period of parental leave.

Jonathan Reeves joined Goldman Sachs in 2007, working in the Salt Lake City and Sydney offices before moving to London in 2013. By 2016 he had risen to become deputy global head of the firm’s control room, leading a team of around 40 people worldwide. He was a consistently strong performer and was promoted to senior vice president in 2020. Despite this, Reeves’ managers had between themselves and behind the scenes, been discussing their doubts about his future from early 2020, even as they continued to give him positive performance reviews.

Reeves began a period of parental leave in November 2021. In March 2022, Goldman Sachs launched a redundancy procedure, and Reeves was selected to be placed at risk. Reeves was not informed of this until May, however by April internal emails were already referring to his ‘termination’. In June he was prevented from returning from parental leave and was instead placed on garden leave. Goldman Sachs failed to carry out a genuine and meaningful consultation procedure and he was eventually dismissed in September 2022. Later, Goldman Sachs appointed two of Reeves’ former direct reports to his role, as co-deputies.

The Employment Tribunal found that Reeves had been unfairly dismissed and subjected to direct sex discrimination, concluding that the redundancy was not genuine and that his treatment was directly linked to his having taken parental leave as a man.

Implications

Reeves’ case highlights several important issues that employers would do well to consider, particularly those operating in regulated sectors where there is increasing scrutiny of discriminatory practices by regulators.

This case underscores that sex discrimination relating to parental leave can cut both ways. The employment tribunal found that Goldman Sachs would not have treated a woman on equivalent leave in the same way, in part because, as Reeves noted himself, the firm would not have risked a discrimination claim by dismissing a woman in those circumstances. Indeed, witnesses for Goldman Sachs admitted they would never put a woman’s name forward for redundancy while they were on maternity leave.

The case also reinforces that employment tribunals will look beyond the label an employer attaches to a dismissal and will examine what actually happened.

In this case the employment tribunal found that the redundancy ground was not substantiated. While the employment tribunal found the dismissal was unfair and discriminatory, it also held that the “underlying motivation in relation to dismissal was performance-related” meaning in effect the real ground was akin to a capability reason. This was in part because Reeves’ performance had been compared to that of others, particularly to one of the colleagues who later replaced Reeves in his role following his termination.

This became important in the remedy judgment, as the employment tribunal considered whether the ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures applied to this dismissal, even though Goldman Sachs had tried to argue it was a redundancy.

The employment tribunal reiterated that an employer cannot ‘sidestep’ the application of the ACAS Code, and the potential 25% uplift, by dressing up a dismissal which in fact relates to capability or conduct, as a redundancy.

Even if Goldman Sachs had been able to establish a fair reason to dismiss Reeves, the employment tribunal considered the process it adopted was so fundamentally flawed (describing the process they adopted as “unfair in every respect”) that the dismissal would still have been rendered unfair.

As a result, the employment tribunal applied the maximum 25% uplift in favour of Reeves, adding more than £770,000 to the award.

The total award of £1,454,662.14 is a striking figure and reflects several compounding factors. Employers should be mindful that financial losses can quickly add up for an unfairly dismissed employee, and employment tribunals will consider a wide range of factors when considering future loss. In this case, the employment tribunal found that the stigma of bringing tribunal proceedings had itself damaged Reeves’ career prospects and was prepared to award future losses for five years. Even after mitigation was deducted, that still amounted to nearly £700,000 in future losses.

Employment tribunals rarely make awards of this size, which makes this case stand out. That said, the abolition of the unfair dismissal compensation cap from January 2027 may well lead to more cases like this, in part because individuals will no longer need to look to bring a discrimination or whistle-blowing claim simply to avoid the cap.

Takeaways for regulatory, risk and compliance professionals

This case has particular resonance for those working in the financial services sector and regulated environments, for reasons that go beyond the employment law findings.

Regulators, and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in particular, have taken a particular interest in non-financial misconduct and discrimination, and have a renewed focus on eliminating these sorts of behaviour from their respective industries. Significant weight is now placed on regulated businesses, to monitor and deal with non-financial misconduct appropriately, and to ensure their procedures stand up to scrutiny.

Regulatory and compliance professionals in regulated businesses will need to be mindful of their regulators’ interest in non-financial misconduct. They will need to work with others in their organisations to ensure, for example, that informal and internal communications are held to the same standard expected of other business communications.

Further, this case is a pertinent reminder that internal communications concerning employees are disclosable in employment tribunal proceedings, as well as in response to subject access requests. A particularly striking example was an email from a senior employee in a compliance role, sent in February 2021 (a year before Reeves was placed at risk) in which Reeves was described as being ‘basically done’ at Goldman Sachs. Such communications are the kind of material that will inevitably come to light during tribunal proceedings.

As in this case, employment tribunals are also likely to want to examine evidence spanning a significant period of time, in this case the employment tribunal looked at conduct stretching back to well over a year before Reeves’ parental leave began.

This case also involved the making of covert recordings, and compliance professionals will be aware of the risks posed by covert recordings. The employment tribunal accepted Reeves’ evidence that he had made the recordings in order to have an accurate record of discussions and that he did not, nor intend to manipulate or entrap, the people he was recording. The employment tribunal determined that the making of covert recordings did not detrimentally affect Reeves’ credibility.

While it does not give carte blanche to employees, the decision could encourage a perhaps already growing trend for employees to covertly record discussions. It could risk the security of internal and confidential meetings or discussions, where now employers need to consider there is a greater risk that the contents could be being recorded or later shared.

Employers should be clear and firm about their expectations concerning information security and confidentiality, and communicate their policies around recordings and ensure each employee is aware of their obligations.

The case is a reminder that the way in which an organisation, and its employees, behave will be scrutinised and can be relevant to the events complained of by claimants well before any dismissal or incidents of discrimination take place. The employment tribunal will consider a wide range of evidence, including informal communications and verbal conversations, so there is little room to hide.

Compliance and HR professionals, when dealing with internal reports or complaints, may need to delve into historical conduct of senior individuals which could be pivotal to discovering the extent of any misconduct.

This case involved a compliance professional in a leadership position, and so the decision to remove Reeves (and the manner in which it was done) could have a significant gap in continuity and institutional knowledge and leadership in a significant part of the business. Any risk of disruption to compliance functions needs to be carefully managed to minimise the risk of a serious issue slipping through the net.

Arguably one of the most important takeaways from this case is a cultural one. Goldman Sachs will have policies covering parental leave, performance management, redundancy and likely regarding covert recordings, yet the employment tribunal found these policies were either not followed, not communicated, or circumvented.

A compliance function, focused on enforcing regulatory rules externally, could perhaps suffer from a blind spot when it comes to tolerating poor internal culture. The values that underpin good regulatory compliance are the same values that govern good employment and HR practices. Compliance functions should ensure that their own personnel are aware of key policies and have received clear and documented training.

For advice on managing discrimination risks, regulatory scrutiny and complex workplace disputes involving senior employees, please get in touch.