A laid-off sales executive from Knight Capital Group’s electronic trading department filed a lawsuit in New Jersey Superior Court last week charging Knight and his former boss with religious discrimination and wrongful termination.
Robert Milloul charged Knight and Brendan McCarthy with firing him because he was a religious Jew and in retaliation for complaining to the trading firm’s human resources department about being persecuted by McCarthy for his religious beliefs.
Milloul is asking the court to force the Jersey City-based Knight to reinstate him to his former position as well as award him unspecified monetary compensation.
A spokesperson for Knight had no comment. McCarthy, who left the firm in April after seven years, could not be reached.
Milloul joined Knight in 2008 after the firm bought his employer EdgeTrade. He was fired in January along with three other employees in the electronic trading department.
According to the lawsuit, Milloul, who is an Orthodox Jew of Syrian descent, first became aware of McCarthy’s alleged anti-Semitic views at the wedding of Brandon Krieg, Milloul’s supervisor, in January 2011. There, McCarthy allegedly told Milloul he thought Syrian Jews were “strange” and “backward.”
In August 2012, according to the suit, McCarthy became head of sales and relationship management in the firm’s electronic trading department, displacing Joe Wald and Krieg—both partners at EdgeTrade. Wald subsequently left the firm.
In December, during a business trip to Milwaukee, attended by Milloul, McCarthy, and another employee, McCarthy allegedly became “insulting and demeaning toward [Milloul’s] religious practices.” That led to a “heated discussion regarding religion,” according to the lawsuit.
In January, according to the suit, McCarthy began telling Knight employees he would be firing people. Milloul was worried he would be fired. He attempted to arrange a meeting with the firm’s head of human resources to file a formal complaint against McCarthy because of his “discriminatory bias” against Milloul. The meeting never occurred.
On January 29, Milloul was let go, along with three other employees who reported to McCarthy. Brandon Krieg, who is also Jewish, was one of those laid off. Krieg is now head of electronic trading at Macquarie Securities.
After the layoffs, according to the lawsuit, only one Jewish employee remained in the electronic trading department. Milloul contends the actions of Knight and McCarthy are illegal under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination.
The news of the lawsuit was first reported by Dealbreaker last week.
