Spain’s Santander hired a law firm to investigate a whistleblower report that a group of bankers visited a strip club after a day of company meetings and pressured younger employees to join, the Financial Times reported.
The incident took place in February after the bank’s global debt capital markets team held meetings at the lender’s UK headquarters, the FT said, citing several people with direct knowledge of the events.
A Santander spokesperson said that the bank takes “all concerns about employee conduct extremely seriously” and follows a “rigorous process” to ensure the facts are established and “appropriate action is taken as necessary.”
It said further that the details were being treated “confidentially, and as such, we cannot comment further.”
Concerns about the trip and that junior staff had felt pressure to attend were raised to the bank’s compliance department by an internal whistleblower, the FT reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
In response, Santander hired U.S. law firm Gibson Dunn to conduct an internal investigation over the summer to establish the facts of the incident.
The law firm interviewed up to 15 people who were involved in the night out - including seven individuals who went to the strip club - and concluded there had not been explicit pressure exerted on junior staff members, according to a person with knowledge of the process, cited by the FT.