The press has recently reported on the tribunal's compensation award in the case of Bower v Schroder. In that case, the low level of a bonus award was held to have been discriminatory on the grounds of sex. Schroder's bonus scheme, which was of a type not uncommon in the City, was heavily criticised by the tribunal for lack of transparency. Details of the tribunal's original decision on the merits are set out below. According to reports, Schroder is appealing the original decision.
The tribunal's most recent decision concerns the amount of compensation to award Ms Bower. Although the written decision is not yet generally available, it appears that the tribunal calculated Ms Bower's period of loss as running from the date she left Schroder to the present date, discounted to take into account the 20% chance that Ms Bower would have been made redundant on the bank's merger in May 2000. The total figure awarded was £1.4 million, including a bonus for 1999 of £170,000 (the bank had
