(Bloomberg) -- Vantage Capital Markets was sued in London by a former equities broker, who alleged the firm discriminated against her when management blocked her return to work after she underwent cancer treatment. 

Camelia Fajri, sued the brokerage for disability discrimination and unfair dismissal. She alleged the firm made unnecessary requests of her when she tried to return after a year on sick leave in 2022 so she would “give up trying to return and would leave.” Vantage Capital denies all the allegations and is challenging the claim. 

Vantage “assumed and concluded that my role was too stressful for me because I had been off with cancer,” Fajri said in a witness statement prepared for a London hearing this week. Fajri left the firm in March 2023 saying the alleged unfair treatment forced her to resign. 

Vantage was fully supportive of Fajri and wanted her to return, the firm’s lawyers said in legal filings. Fitness assessment to come back to work was necessary to identify the reasonable adjustments required to support her “in a highly demanding environment.” 

The communication with her was not driven by any agenda, they said.

Fajri’s salary was cut to half in November 2022 and stopped the following month. “I was shocked,” Fajri said referring to WhatsApp message about the salary reduction.

“The reason for this decision was to reduce the financial cost” to Vantage, its lawyers said in their response to the claim. The firm’s financial support to Fajri was “above and beyond her contractual and statutory entitlements,” lawyers for the firm said. 

Fajri and lawyers for Vantage Capital declined to comment further.

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