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'I felt like a prostitute': Romanian accountant sues top City firm for £40m in race claim

Updated: 09:21 EST, 13 July 2009 Claim: Mihaela Popa, 31, is suing PricewaterhouseCoopers for a record £40m for alleged racial discrimination

An accountant who claims she was made to feel 'like a prostitute' by her bosses is suing a top City firm for £40million in a record race discrimination claim.

Romanian Mihaela Popa says she suffered a string of racist and sexual jibes while working at accountancy giant PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Miss Popa, 31, claims that a colleague told her 'Eastern Europeans are whores' and use to refer to her as 'Mihaela and porn'.

She says she was accused of only being in London to 'live it up' and was quizzed about returning to Romania, given menial tasks to perform and ignored for promotion.

When she asked one manager why she was given mundane work, he allegedly said that 'someone was needed to mop up the s***'.

She alleges that some of her colleagues even believed she was a Communist spy working undercover for the Securitate, the Romanian secret police.

Miss Popa, of Hampstead, north west London, earned £41,000-a-year as a forensic accountant.

She claims that the discrimination prevented her from becoming a partner with the firm, earning as least £500,000-a-year plus bonuses.

She is demanding £40million in compensation for loss of earnings and hurt feelings - believed to be the highest amount ever claimed in a race discrimination case.

PricewaterHouse Coopers denies her allegations of race discrimination and victimisation.

Miss Popa studied for an MBA in the U.S. and started her career at the company's office in Bucharest in 2000.

She says she suffered sexual harassment and race discrimination within months of moving to the firm's Chicago branch, before transferring to London in September 2004.

She alleges the treatment became 'progressively unbearable' until she felt she had no choice by to resign in November 2006 after being off sick for several months with depression and anxiety.

Speaking outside a Central London employment tribunal, she said: 'They said originally that they thought I could be a future partner but then they never gave me the opportunity.'

Miss Popa has already lost a previous claim for racial discrimination against PricewaterhouseCoopers, but claims to have more detailed evidence in her fresh case.

A spokesman for the company said: 'We successfully defended claims at the employment tribunal in November 2007 and the employment appeals tribunal in 2008.

'We will be vigorously defending the most recent claims.'


Romanian accountant sues top City firm for record £40m in race discrimination claim



