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By Choi Kyong-ae
Woori Bank said Monday its U.S. outlet has been sued over alleged sexual harassment of two local hires by a Korean manager.
The two male plaintiffs in their 30s filed a lawsuit against Woori Bank New York Agency as their reporting of the sexual harassment case to the headquarters in Seoul resulted in their layoffs, an official at Woori Bank said by telephone.
"The New York agency will hire a lawyer to handle the issue and it will be managed locally in the U.S.," the official said.
Two Korean-American employees at Woori Bank's New York operation brought the case to a New York-based court as they were sexually harassed by the Korean male manager during an office dinner in November 2012, he explained.
"But the layoffs were partly due to negligence of their duties. In fact, they didn't focus on their work for the last months preparing the lawsuit for compensations worth $3.5 million," he said.
Two months earlier, the Korean male manager was already accused of sexually harassing two other workers during a dinner meeting in September 2012.
The two male plaintiffs argued that they were not given work after their reporting via emails to Woori's headquarters in Seoul and were fired in April last year, according to local reports.
"There was no serious sexual harassment during the dinner in September. The female workers are still working in the New York agency. They didn't join the lawsuit filed by their male co-workers," the Woori official said.
"The manager (in his 40s) was called back to Seoul in March for an in-house investigation. He has since been excluded from duties," he said without elaborating further.
The two plaintiffs reportedly asked Woori Bank New York Agency to pay them $3.5 million (about 3.6 billion won) in compensation for the dismissal. Kim & Bae, P.C., a Manhattan-based law firm, represents them in New York.
The law firm and the two plaintiffs could not be reached for comment.
Woori Bank New York Agency, largely involved in foreign-exchange affairs, extends loans to Korean businesses operating in the U.S. The Korean bank had 28 employees on its payroll as of Monday.
Woori Bank runs five corporate bodies outside of Korea in Russia, Indonesia, China, Brazil, and the U.S. It posted 305.54 billion won ($299 million) in revenue in the first quarter ended March 31, up 59 percent from 192.29 billion won a year earlier.
