Financier denies using prostitutes

A MILLIONAIRE financier being sued by a former employee for discrimination yesterday told a tribunal he never used prostitutes.

City executive Jordan Wimmer, 29, has accused her boss Mark Lowe of humiliating her by bringing high-class prostitutes to business meetings.

Giving evidence at the Central London Employment Tribunal yesterday, Lowe, sole shareholder of Nomos Capital, denied a string of allegations including hiring hit men and making sexist jokes, as well as paying for escort girls.

Wimmer, a Canadian who lives in Chelsea, west London, is claiming for sex discrimination, unlawful deduction of wages, unfair constructive dismissal and disability discrimination.

Cross-examining Lowe, Wimmer’s barrister, Julian Wilson, said the 59-year-old brought two escorts — Natalia Malagina and a woman known only as Ling — to work events.

Wilson said: “Ms Wimmer felt humiliated when you brought Ling dressed provocatively to meetings.

“You brought Ling along, just as you brought Natalia along, to give you status. In your male-dominated world of hedge funds, it was a persona you wanted to portray.”

Wilson said Lowe did not care if his actions “violated” his employees’ professional dignity.

Lowe said both Ling and Malagina, a Russian student, were at one time his girlfriends, but they were now just friends.

He said Malagina, who once worked as a stripper and escort, was interested in the hedge fund industry, and he sponsored her while she undertook an internship in New York.

He denied Wilson’s suggestion the money paid to her was for “favours”.

Lowe admitted to looking at the website of a Swiss agency called Feline Escorts, because a colleague had sent him a link.

But he denied ever using the services and added he was just looking at the site for “innocent voyeurism”.

Wilson accused Lowe of continuing to make jokes about blonde women despite his client, who is herself blonde, being sensitive to them.

In his statement, Lowe admitted referring to 29-year-old Wimmer as “decorative” and “a dumb blonde” but insisted the comments were made in a “joke manner” and were taken in the manner they were intended.

Lowe said that Wimmer expressed “mock horror” at his joke, so he decided to stop making such comments.

Wilson said despite this, Lowe sent an email to his team — including Wimmer — about a blonde woman “mentally incapable of distinguishing cornflakes from a puzzle”.

Lowe replied: “I didn’t for a moment suppose anyone would take exception to a feeble joke of this sort.”

Wilson went on: “You didn’t give any thought to her feelings when you circulated the joke.

“You knew she had been sensitive to your ‘dumb blonde’ jokes in the past.”

Lowe said: “It was not directed against your client. The thought never occurred to me that she would be offended. None of the jokes were demeaning or provocative.”

The tribunal heard Lowe emailed jokes to his employees about sex and women which included “an engineer’s guide to women”, a sexual encounter told using road signs and comparisons drawn between women and expensive cars.

In yesterday’s hearing, while being questioned by his barrister, Elizabeth Melville, Lowe denied hiring a hitman to kill Wimmer — following allegations made by his former employee last week.

Melville asked: “Did you arrange, either through your family or other contacts, to have the claimant hurt or killed?”

Lowe replied: “No.”

Lowe, who lives in Switzerland and has an estimated wealth of £100 million (€113m), added that he was out of the country at the time of the alleged incident.

Wimmer told the tribunal that she called the police after being followed by a man in the Kings Road in west London on May 9.

The tribunal continues.