Fund manager sues Meritz for allegedly being fired for seeking parental leave

[Courtesy of Meritz]

A South Korean fund manager, who was allegedly driven out of her job due to her parental leave application, has filed a lawsuit against her company Meritz Asset Management, seeking 1 billion won ($780,000) in compensation.

According to sources on Monday, the fund manager, known by her surname Park, claimed that she was dismissed by Meritz Asset Management under the pretext of her parental leave application and filed an unjust dismissal lawsuit last week, seeking about 1 billion won in compensation.

Park joined Meritz Asset Management’s marketing team in 2018 and was later assigned to additional responsibilities as a fund manager. With a career in the stock investment field since 1999, Park had built a reputation in the industry, having worked for UBS in New York and BNP Paribas in Hong Kong.

In December of last year, Park submitted a parental leave application and had a first meeting with her team members to hand over her duties. However, four days after the meeting, Park received an email from the company titled “Notice of Termination of Employment Contract.”

It was confirmed that the company did not provide any explanation to Park before she received the email. Although it was officially stated as the end of the contract period, Park explained that she was sacked virtually due to her parental leave application.

She argues that since she initially started her employment in a marketing role, she was effectively employed as an indefinite-term contract worker. The pink slip contained only three lines of one-sided notification without any further explanation, stating, “In accordance with the company’s decision, we are sending the attached Notice of Termination of Employment Contract.”

Meritz Asset Management is a company once recognized by the government as a female-friendly enterprise and has also been involved in funds to encourage investment in female-friendly companies. At one point, Park even played a leading role in managing this fund.

Ironically, the person in charge of investing in female-friendly companies had her contract forcibly terminated due to parental leave.

“A parental leave-related lawsuit in Korea is not easy and this will be a long fight, but I believe that the lawsuit I filed can serve as a precedent. I will fight to the end so that a new legal precedent can be established for working mothers and fathers who face similar disadvantages,” Park told Maeil Business Newspaper in a telephone interview.

Meritz Asset Management said that “If a lawsuit is filed, we will sincerely respond to it.”