A group of brokers at Smith Barney, Citigroup’s brokerage unit, flies a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco incriminating the firm with gender discrimination. One current and three former California employees of Smith Barney accuse the company of systematically passing over its female employees when assigning lucrative accounts as decisions were made by the "virtually all-male branch management".

The complaint claims to represent all current women brokers, called financial consultants at the unit, as well as some of the former Smith Barney employees, uniting about 5,000 women.

"These claims are entirely without merit," a Citigroup spokeswoman said. She insists that "significant initiatives" of the past few years had propelled Smith Barney to one of the "most progressive" working environments on Wall Street, removing gender discrimination.

Smith Barney has already suffered from the lawsuit from female employees of its Garden City, N.Y., office, who in 1996 accused their male colleagues of sexual harassment. Similarly, Morgan Stanley settled an analogous suit for $54 million, as its female employees claimed to have been passed over for promotions and pay raises.