Top French trader accused of "emotional terrorism" is now a friendly food delivery guy
It's been a while since Omar Alami worked for BNP Paribas' Paris office. Today, Alami has a new kind of existence, and maybe a new kind of persona too. As of yesterday, though, he also has quite a lot less money than he had hoped for.
Alami was fired by BNP Paribas in 2019. He spent 12 years working for the bank after joining from HSBC in 2007. He was acknowledged to be very good at his job and when he left, he was head of equity derivative sales for Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg, earning $1.3m.
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Alami didn't respond to multiple requests to comment for this article. Since leaving BNP Paribas, he's reinvented himself with a portfolio career and as CEO of Ora Technologies and Moroccan food delivery app, Kooul Maroc. In this new existence, Alami seems cheerfully avuncular and highly chilled.
When he was at BNP Paribas, this may not always have been so. BNP Paribas fired Alami for allegedly bullying his subordinates, such that one junior accused him of "emotional terrorism" and another declared, “I’ve never been so well paid, yet I’ve never felt so unhappy at work.” Alami always denied that he had humiliated or insulted colleagues and filed a $4m unfair dismissal claim against BNP Paribas for wrongly dismissing him. In 2022, he was awarded $1.8m in lost salary and bonuses after a judge agreed that he had been unfairly let go by the French bank. But yesterday, Alami lost that claim and the money on appeal after a judge ruled that his dismissal was warranted.
When Alami first left BNP Paribas, he found a new job in Switzerland, but said it paid him 60% less and gave him 60% less time with his family. Running Kooul Maroc looks like a better option.
In his original court case in 2022, Alami's lawyer noted that several of his colleagues had praised him for being kind and observed that he'd never been accused of aggressiveness during his annual appraisals. Alami himself said he'd simply been "lively" when he berated a BNP colleague for an apparent mistake. He said he was "never insulting or aggressive.”
At Kooul Maroc, Alami's new junior colleagues are more likely to include delivery riders and app developers than traders making errors that could cost $900k. This is probably a good thing. Other senior traders and salespeople who find themselves under daily stress may want to bear it mind as a possible alternative.
Speaking of yesterday's ruling, Alami's lawyer said: "This appeal decision violates the right to a fair trial and will be overturned by the Court of Cassation, as it is based solely on statements gathered anonymously and without any process to verify their accuracy or authorship. Furthermore, a review of this decision reveals that the Court of Appeal failed to consider the substantial evidence presented by Mr. Alami and failed to assess the severity of the discrimination he suffered due to his origins."
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