Accountant Makes Racial Discrimination Case Against PwC

Tue, 25 Jan 2011

Accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is being sued by a former partner for discriminating against non-white employees.

Sri Lankan-born Dunstan Pedropillai, 47, is suing the firm where he still works for £2.6 million, claiming it has an "Anglo-Saxon male culture" that has prevented him from getting the top jobs and restricted his earning potential at the firm.

At an employment tribunal, the Cambridge graduate said: "I believe I have been treated less favourably by PwC on the grounds of my race."

"I am stuck on a very low role level. However hard I pump my accelerator I am never going to get up to the kind of income level other partners have."

"The original culture of the firm is an extremely strong collegiate club-like corporate culture which has its roots in Anglo-Saxon male culture."

He added that when he complained about suspected racial discrimination back in 2005, he was threatened with the sack.

Mr Pedropillai joined PwC as an audit specialist in 1986 and was made a partner in 1997 due to his "exceptional professional and interpersonal skills".

However, his career began to falter after returning from the firm’s office in Japan in 2001. His lawyer alleges that despite dealing with top banks such as Barclays and Goldman Sachs, Pedropillai was only given small and high-risk clients to work with from then on.

The tribunal also heard how the accountant received a bad appraisal for dating a colleague, who is now his wife, without revealing the seriousness of the relationship to his boss.

Suzanne McKie of PwC said the firm denied the claims and insisted that Mr Pedropillai’s career faltered because of "poor people skills". The hearing continues.
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