A hedge fund tycoon has been ordered to pay nearly £100,000 to his former PA after pressuring her to break lockdown rules during the pandemic.
Ramy Goldstein, 73, insisted his assistant of 11 years, Marie Herve, should travel to his home in Belgravia despite the imposition of a second national Covid lockdown in November 2020.
Ms Herve told her boss that she feared a criminal conviction if she ignored the stay-at-home rule and could instead continue to work remotely.
But Mr Goldstein insisted “life and work must go on” and suggested the PA could travel to work on public transport outside of rush hour.
Ms Herve was signed off sick and ultimately resigned on November 12, 2020, and took her former boss to an employment tribunal.
Judge Natasha Joffe has now ordered Mr Goldstein to pay her £94,291 to cover lost earnings and pension, counselling fees and injury to her feelings.
In the breakdown of her relationship with Mr Goldstein, Ms Herve was also forced out of a second role as assistant his former business partner Vipin Sareen.
The judge, sitting at Central London employment tribunal, ordered Mr Sareen to pay her £20,950 for unfair dismissal, covering damages and lost wages.
After winning the initial employment tribunal, Ms Herve said she had been given “the opportunity to have a voice, that was heard”.
She began working for Mr Goldstein and Mr Sareen in 2009 when they were running hedge fund IV Capital, and she continued to assist them after the firm was wound up in 2014.
When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Ms Herve worked remotely with sporadic visits to her bosses’ properties when pandemic rules allowed.
Her partner is asthmatic and was in an “at-risk” category, and he lost several friends and relatives to Covid, the tribunal heard.
When the second national lockdown was imposed, Ms Herve sent Mr Goldstein a copy of the new rules and said she wanted to continue working from home.
“I do not wish to act outside these new lockdown rules and break the law and I am confident that you would not wish to encourage me to do so”, she wrote.
But he insisted his home was “Covid-safe and compliant”, promised a risk assessment, and told Ms Herve: “Social distancing can be maintained to a very high degree... Life and work must go on as best it can and with compliance with the guidelines”, he added. “We are very confident that working in our home does not expose you to such risk.”
Mr Goldstein, a former vice chairman at UBS who is now a senior adviser at GCW Global Customised Wealth, lost an appeal in the case. Zillur Rahman, Ms Herve’s lawyer from Rahman Lowe Solicitors, said she had been force to wait nearly two years for compensation.
