Lloyd’s of London has issued a record fine against an underwriting group for its handling of bullying and harassment, including a “boys’ night out” during which sexualised comments were made about female colleagues.
The insurance market said that Atrium had accepted three charges of misconduct and had been fined more than £1 million. Lloyd’s said that the misconduct had taken place over a number of years and “precipitated a culture which tolerated instances of unacceptable conduct involving discrimination, harassment and bullying”.
Atrium’s boys’ night out was held every year until 2018. Some male members of staff, including two senior executives in leadership roles, engaged in “unprofessional and inappropriate conduct”. The behaviour included initiation games, heavy drinking and making inappropriate and sexualised comments about female colleagues, which Lloyd’s said were both “discriminatory and harassing”.
Some of this conduct was found to have been led, participated in and condoned by the two senior executives.
One employee’s behaviour involved “a systematic campaign of bullying” against a junior employee over a number of years, Lloyd’s said.
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Atrium failed adequately to protect the junior employee once it became aware of the bullying. When the misconduct came to light, it also failed to investigate and apply appropriate disciplinary measures. Atrium negotiated a settlement package with the bully and allowed him to resign rather than face disciplinary action.
Lloyd’s said that the proposal was motivated in part by the desire of a senior manager to protect Atrium from bad publicity and to limit the impact on the business unit involved.
An employee who made complaints about the bully’s behaviour was not adequately protected and was told not to speak about the outcome of the investigation of the allegations.
Lloyd’s is the world’s oldest insurance market, founded by Edward Lloyd at his London coffee house in 1686, and is made up of syndicates that write insurance policies.
Atrium, which traces its roots back to the 1930s, is a specialist insurance and reinsurance business. It has 205 employees, of whom 82 are women.
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The insurance market has faced a string of allegations of sexual harassment and other unacceptable behaviour in recent years. In 2019, a staff survey found that almost 500 people had witnessed sexual harassment at work.
Lloyd’s has standards of conduct that apply to all market participants and are overseen by the Corporation of Lloyd’s, which regulates the insurance market.
Lloyd’s said that Atrium had failed to notify it of the misconduct of the bullying employee, which was a failure of the market’s requirement for participants to be “open, honest and transparent” with Lloyd’s.
John Neal, chief executive of Lloyd’s, said: “We are deeply disappointed by the behaviour highlighted by this case, and I want to be clear that discrimination, harassment and bullying have no place at Lloyd’s.”
Atrium must also pay around £560,000 in costs.
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Christopher Stooke, independent non-executive chairman of Atrium, said: “With deep regret, it is clear that Atrium failed to live up to its values and serous errors were made when handling these matters.
“We are sorry for the hurt that this caused and how difficult this [has] been for those affected. The behaviour outlined . . . has no place in our business or our industry, and we recognise that we must go further to ensure that this situation is never allowed to happen again.”
