In the months since Steven A. Cohen became the owner of the Mets, he has been, all he has never been, one of Wall Street’s most mysterious money managers: pleasant and approachable.
Mr Cohen gave news conferences and numerous interviews to the New York sports media – something he rarely did with the business reporters making every turn in an insider trading scandal, which led to one of his hedge funds from a million dollars of debt. charges of security fraud in 2013.
And he has become something of a favorite on Twitter – he regularly posted his thoughts on the Mets and deals with other professional baseball teams. Mr. Cohen, 64, even seems to be enjoying joy back and forth with fans who responded to him on Twitter.
But with his hedge funds, Mr. Cohen has long been known for a mercurial nature that has led him to traders who he believes do not earn enough money. Now, a complaint recently filed by a former top manager for Mr. Cohen filed, a look at his volatile mood and what some women have said is an openly sexist and hostile culture in his Point72 Asset Management hedge fund company, based in Stamford, Conn.
In the complaint, Sara Vavra, who led a trading group at Point72, said that Cohen stopped by her office in July 2019 and started an insulting, explicit tirade in which he said that her work ‘sucks’ and that she’ stupid. “She said in the complaint that Cohen also uses a derogatory word for a woman’s genitals, in addition to dropping some general explicit ones.
Me. Vavra’s complaint was filed with Connecticut’s Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities this past summer. In it, she said Mr Cohen summoned her later that day as his verbal assault to another person’s office at the firm, where he continued to diminish her abilities. This time he did it in front of others and again used divine language. According to her, Cohen threatened to fire her.
“Cohen mocked me and called me ‘idiot’ and incompetent,” she said in the complaint. “He told me I was ‘wrong about everything.’ She said, “I have to fire you for being so stupid.”
Finally, Point72 fired her in October 2019 and asked her to file her discrimination complaint with the Connecticut Commission. Only a month before her shooting, Point72 congratulations tweeted to her because she was named one of the top 50 women in hedge funds by a publication.
“We have found that Mrs Vavra during her work made numerous misrepresentations about things big and small, and this also applies to her complaint, including the particularly offensive accusation that Steve used vulgar language when she addressed her,” Tiffany Galvin said. -Cohen, a Point72, said. spokesperson. “Steve strongly denies that he made this remark to Ms. Vavra at all times.”
The complaint recently became known because Mrs. Vavra asked the commission in December to release its jurisdiction over the matter and give her the right to sue in court. The New York Times had an outstanding request for freedom of information for the charge. Point72 submitted its own documents to dispute her claims.
Me. Vavra and her lawyer did not return requests for comment. The case is now being heard in a private arbitration between the parties.
The allegations against Mr. Cohen and his company are entering a time of growing concern about the treatment of women on Wall Street and in the world of professional sports. In July, The Washington Post published an article on a history of sexism and abuse of female employees by the Washington Football Team. The Houston Astros fired their assistant general manager, Brandon Taubman, after making inappropriate remarks to a group of female reporters after a victory in the 2019 national season.
A number of professional baseball teams have taken steps to provide top work to women. The Miami Marlins appointed Kim Ng as the first female general manager in Major League Baseball in November, and the Boston Red Sox appointed Bianca Smith on Monday, who is believed to be the first black female coach in the minor leagues.
In the run-up to baseball team owners approving Cohen’s $ 2.4 billion offer to buy the Mets, there were concerns whether a series of allegations of sexist behavior at Point72 could derail the deal. It was known at the time that Mrs. Vavra filed a complaint against Point72, but its specific nature was unclear because the case was sealed.
Major League Baseball declined to comment for this article.
Mr. Cohen tried to handle a 2018 lawsuit in which Point72 is accused of cultivating a hostile workplace for women by settling with the person who filed the complaint, Lauren Bonner, for an unknown amount last summer. In that case, Ms. Bonner painted a picture of mr. Cohen’s firm as a testosterone-designated boys’ club where female employees were underpaid compared to their male counterparts, and where senior men regularly commented on female bodies and diminished women and their abilities. in meetings.
The dispute with me. Bonner, a former executive in Point72’s recruitment division, was fired last year after the case was transferred to arbitration.
But the lawsuit of Mrs. Bonner and a complaint she filed in arbitration contains no accusation that Mr. Cohen uses the kind of vulgar and ominous language that Mrs. Vavra said he did not use her in 2019.
In the 22-page complaint – which is technically called an affidavit of illegal discriminatory practices – Ms. Vavra said Cohen attacked her in public for a few months in 2019 and often used four-letter words to do so. She said he complained to her orally, even though her trading group was a top performer at the hedge fund, and she had a positive performance rating from Mr. Cohen received in December 2018. Mrs. Vavra said Mr. Cohen told her she was one of the firms. hardest workers, and she received a performance bonus.
The complaint contains allegations that others at the firm with 1,400 employees also made sexist comments. Me. Vavra claims that Mr. Cohen has a similar habit of cheating on his female assistants in public. She said his verbally abusive behavior was so bad that the firm of his female assistants ‘had to move’ to another wing of the building so they could not hear him. The firm disputes me. Vavra’s allegations about how assistants were treated.
Me. Vavra filed her complaint after she was fired from Point72 and replaced by a man. She led the group of so-called global macro traders of the hedge fund – a group that places bets based on monetary and geopolitical events. Me. Vavra said she was fired because of Point72’s practice of using a double standard with respect to the firm’s few female employees. According to her, the hedge fund claimed that it fired her due to ‘gross misconduct’ and because she had violated a fixed policy.