Two City workers who are each suing a Japanese investment bank for £1.5 million say they were driven from their jobs because they were not male and not Japanese.

Maureen Murphy, 30, and Anna Francis, 37, are both suing Nomura for sex and race discrimination and unfair dismissal. Miss Murphy also alleges sexual harassment.

Their barrister, Michael Duggan, told the Central London Employment Tribunal: “This organisation is institutionally racist and sexist.”

Miss Murphy, a senior analyst earning £55,000 a year, and Miss Francis, a director on £250,000, had worked in Asian equity sales for Lehman Brothers when that bank collapsed last year. Their department was bought by Nomura and they transferred to its City offices.

In legal papers submitted to the tribunal, Miss Murphy, who is half–American and half-German, said she had been mocked by traders who said “Go for it!” in exaggerated American accents. She also claimed that a male client had told her colleague, Melissa Holian: ‘Oh, you don’t have your honkers out today.” According to the legal papers: “Melissa clarified honkers referred to her breasts. She went on to say there was no point in standing up to him as he would smear your reputation in the entire market.”

Miss Murphy, of North London, described talking to a trader about hiring a cleaner. He allegedly said: “You’re a woman. That’s where you belong, at home cleaning the floors.”

She said she was excluded from clients and marginalised before being dismissed in March this year.Miss Francis, of West London, said she was promised a place on a new Asian equities sales team but was made redundant last December.

“I would not have been treated in this way if I was male employee, especially a Japanese male employee,” she said. Her former boss allegedly told Miss Murphy that Miss Francis had been dismissed for being “too outspoken and female”, explaining that “the Japanese hate women, especially if they are too loud”.

Nomura denies the accusations. Sal Dirschberger, a spokesman, said: “Nomura maintains that it acted fairly in the dismissal of Anna Francis and Maureen Murphy by reason of redundancy as part of a wider reorganisation following the Lehman Brothers acquisition. To suggest they were selected on the basis of race or sex is wholly unfounded.”

The case continues.

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