Female Moet exec told she was 'gagging for it' sues firm for $1.5m
Maria Gasparovic, the former chief of staff to executive Jean-Marc Lacave, was sacked last June, just four months after she told her HR department about senior colleagues' alleged misconduct while she worked at the firm's Paris headquarters.
Lacave, her direct boss, is alleged to have told her that in order to be promoted, she needed 'anti-seduction' training, it was reported.
He is also accused of telling her that she had not been promoted because a client had said she was 'gagging for it' at a meeting.
Gasparovic is suing the multi-billion dollar firm for $1.5million in damages and compensation over accusations of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and unfair dismissal.
LHMV has refuted the claims, and has filed a lawsuit against her for defamation after she posted the allegations to social media. A defamation trial is expected in the fall.
In her dismissal letter, Moet Hennessy said she was being fired for impersonating another employee on a call while on sick leave, and for making threatening remarks to colleagues, though she had denied all these allegations.
Before she was made to leave, she reportedly submitted a whistleblowing report to the firm in which she detailed her allegations of harassment and discrimination, though according to a legal complaint she filed the firm did not carry out a formal investigation.
Mark Stead, the company's former chief operating officer who is in a relationship with Gasparovic, was reportedly sacked for allegedly misusing travel and expenses resources shortly after he accompanied her to meetings with HR.
Since her sacking, around a dozen people have reportedly come forward to reveal a series of executive departures 'related to a toxic workplace environment where bullying and mismanagement were problems'.
At least four female employees at Moet Hennessy's Paris headquarters have reported bullying and harassment before leaving. Three of those who filed complaints at employment tribunals have since settled with the firm.
Several women allegedly complained about being the subject of unfounded rumours about having affairs with men at the company.
According to the Financial Times, after one woman told HR that people were spreading false rumors that she had slept with a male executive to get work opportunities, she was simply told to 'get used to it'.
Many employees of the firm complained of stress and bullying, with at least 20 staff at the headquarters going on long-term sick leave in 2024 alone.
One source told the FT that gossip and rumors are rife at Moet Hennessy, and that it was a 'boys club'.
They said that bosses would 'scream at people like it was a fashion house in the 1990s, except we are in 2025 - that behavior is no longer acceptable'.
The source reportedly added: 'Lots of people were going on sick leave, people were disappearing overnight. It took on disruptive proportions'.
In a note sent to staff in September 2024, Moet Hennessy's then-chief executive Philippe Schaus and head of HR Paula Fallowfield tried to put out the fires of Gasparovic's allegations, and of the wider concerns within the company, the FT reports.
'We assure you that each case has been handled thoughtfully, fairly and in line with a commitment to confidentiality and our values,' they wrote in the email, while reminding staff of 'the distress one-sided narratives may cause'.
'We are committed to providing a positive working environment . . . Moreover we are also determined to do everything possible to protect the reputation of Moet Hennessy,' they wrote.
Gasparovic's lawsuit is expected to be heard in court later this year.
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Times
26 minutes ago
- Times
‘Try before you buy': the new property trend loved by the super-rich
'Madame,' Marcel Proust wrote to his noisy upstairs neighbour in the summer of 1915, 'I had ordered these flowers for you and I am in despair that they are coming on a day when… I feel so ill that I would like to ask you for silence… causing them to lose all their fragrance… and bristle with nasty thorns.' For many of us the ills of close-quartered London living are just as prosaic as they were for the French writer over a century ago, delicately navigating the upstairs harpist's playing and her dentist husband's drill, as he flattered them into a peace that would let him finish In Search of Lost Time, his masterpiece. However, a new trend might hold the answer, for the uber-wealthy at least. Prime and super-prime real estate agents — broadly defined as those selling properties over £5 million and £10 million respectively — are seeing a rise in high and ultra-high-net-worth individuals negotiating the right to 'try before you buy' — renting a luxury home before taking the purchasing plunge. Francesca Fox, the director of lettings at Sotheby's International Realty, says the trend started last year but has accelerated 'like wildfire' in 2025, driven mainly by international clients looking to relocate to London but increasingly concerned by high property purchase costs in the UK, potential changes to the non-dom rules, international wars and the whims of their own governments' attitudes to taxation and business. With such slings and arrows, it makes sense to keep their roots shallow, for now. It's not just Sotheby's that has spotted this trend — Knight Frank agrees it's on the rise. Tom Smith, the head of super-prime lettings, says that in the last fifteen months four properties have sold to their former tenants, with two more looking to buy having tried the approach. That might not sound like much, but this is a very small, niche market. Tom says that about 10 to 15 per cent of his clients are having these conversations now, whereas, 15 months ago, it 'just wasn't happening'. The deals can be structured in a few ways — a simple gentleman's agreement, a right of first refusal where a keen renter can buy if the owner decides to sell, or a purchase right built into a tenancy agreement, often with an agreed price or terms, but sometimes with the final price set once the tenant 'triggers' their option. As can be imagined when you're spending many millions, things are pretty bespoke — despite the growth in popularity, there's lots of flexibility in how these agreements are structured. Fox estimates that 80 to 90 per cent of the homes on her books were originally listed as sale only, but now she is offering them to rent. Tenants tend to test-drive their homes for no more than 24 months before deciding to buy, usually after 6 to 12 months. The majority of homes are rented furnished — if people are uncertain about long-term plans they don't want to invest in blinds, bookends and artworks. Although Fox says several super-prime homes have recently sold with the furniture included too, and those sellers have themselves gone on to rent fully furnished homes while they decide whether to buy a new place or relocate. Flexibility is the name of the game in today's market. • Read more expert advice on property, interiors and home improvement Psychologically this desire to try before we buy makes sense. We put far more effort into assessing risk — and therein avoiding loss — than we do into trying to gain something, says the consumer psychologist Dr Helen Watts. The type of person we are matters too. 'Some people are very high on what's called an external locus of control. And this means that if something goes wrong they find it much easier to say, well, it wasn't really my fault, it's to do with the environment,' she explains. 'But others have a high internal locus of control, where they feel that everything that goes wrong or right is to do with themselves.' It's these people, Watts thinks, who feel the pain of a loss more personally and are thus more likely to give a product — or a £20 million townhouse — a renting whirl first. And what of the properties themselves? Buyers are usually looking for six to eight bedrooms, Fox says. A lot of properties have pools, cinemas and private gardens. The wellness craze is driving an interest in spa facilities too — cold water pool plunges, saunas and, increasingly, hammam spas. The latest must-have is a private driveway because of the high rates of car theft, though some are mitigating that risk by simply hiring chauffeurs. One property on offer from Sotheby's is an eight-bed, nine-bath, 8,825 sq ft home on Sheldon Avenue in Highgate, north London. If a triple-height reception hall with a sweeping staircase and two galleried landings is your thing, it's available to rent on a short let basis for £25,000 a week. There's also a two-storey orangery and a pool. Another property currently looking for a tenant — and hopefully one who will ultimately buy — is 1 Hanover Terrace. With 6,730 sq ft of living space it's a touch larger than the average London home's 850 sq ft. Plus, there are six bedrooms and nine bathrooms, a cinema, gym, sauna, double garage and a separate mews house for staff — or all the friends who'll try to come and stay with you when you're living in Regent's Park. Its owner — the Addison Lee founder, Sir John Griffin — moved in in 2013. 'Living there is very peaceful. The view of the lake is mesmerising.' And has he had any problems with noisy neighbours? 'None whatsoever. If anyone misbehaves, I am sure that Damian Hirst [a neighbour] could place them in a tank.' Approaching his eighties and in search of a quieter life in the countryside, Griffin listed the mansion for sale at £29 million in 2022. It failed to sell and can now be rented for £75,000 a month. To top it off it was designed by John Nash in 1811, who also has Buckingham Palace on his CV. There are some potential downsides to all this flexibility. 'From a psychological point of view it can be very draining,' says Watts, highlighting how easily we now return everything from a cashmere jumper to a floor lamp — many of Ikea's items now have a full 365-day returns policy. 'We are in this perpetual state of questioning 'do I still want to own this?' and that can be quite wearing for consumers.' And what might have become of Proust if he had rented first, ditched his apartment at the first pluck of a harp string and spent more time writing. In Search of Lost Time, Volume Two perhaps?
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
cn844n379y5o (GIF Image, 1 × 1 pixels)
James Cook Scotland editor • @BBCJamesCook BBC Nicola Sturgeon's memoir Frankly is now on sale, slightly earlier than expected after newspaper serialisations and interviews teased some tantalising extracts. True to its title, the book has Scotland's former first minister writing candidly about the highs and lows of her time in office including challenges she says had a serious impact on her mental health. So with the full text now available, what are the key things we have learned? Transgender controversy After more than eight years in power, and eight election victories, Sturgeon saw final months in office marred by rows about trans issues. It was, she writes in her memoir, a time of "rancour and division". Sturgeon now admits to having regrets about the process of trying to legislate to make it easier to legally change gender, saying she has asked herself whether she should have "hit the pause button" to try to reach consensus. "With hindsight, I wish I had," she writes, although she continues to argue in favour of the general principle of gender self-identification. Spindrift Isla Bryson was jailed in 2023 after being convicted of rape Sturgeon also addresses the case of double rapist Adam Graham who was initially sent to a female prison after self-identifying as a woman called Isla Bryson. It was, writes Sturgeon, a development "that gave a human face to fears that until then had been abstract for most people". As first minister she sometimes struggled to articulate her position on the case and to decide which, if any, pronoun to use to describe Bryson. "When confronted with the question 'Is Isla Bryson a woman?' I was like a rabbit caught in the headlights," she writes. "Because I failed to answer 'yes', plain and simple... I seemed weak and evasive. Worst of all, I sounded like I didn't have the courage to stand behind the logical conclusion of the self-identification system we had just legislated for. "In football parlance, I lost the dressing room." Speaking to ITV News on Monday Sturgeon said she now believed a rapist "probably forfeits the right" to identify as a woman. JK Rowling JK Rowling posted a selfie of herself wearing a T-shirt describing Sturgeon as a "destroyer of women's rights" The former first minister also criticises her highest profile opponent on the gender issue, Harry Potter author JK Rowling, for posting a selfie in a T-shirt bearing the slogan "Nicola Sturgeon, destroyer of women's rights". "It resulted in more abuse, of a much more vile nature, than I had ever encountered before. It made me feel less safe and more at risk of possible physical harm," she writes. Sturgeon adds that "it was deeply ironic that those who subjected me to this level of hatred and misogynistic abuse often claimed to be doing so in the interests of women's safety". Rowling has been approached for comment. Her relationship with Alex Salmond Sturgeon's mentor and predecessor as first minster, Alex Salmond, is mentioned dozens of times in the book, often in unflattering terms which reflect their estrangement after he was accused of sexual offences. Salmond won a judicial review of the Scottish government's handling of complaints against him and in 2020 was cleared of all 13 charges but his reputation was sullied by revelations in court about inappropriate behaviour with female staff. Sturgeon lambasts Salmond's claim that he was the victim of a conspiracy, saying there was no obvious motive for women to have concocted false allegations which would then have required "criminal collusion" with politicians, civil servants, police and prosecutors. "He impugned the integrity of the institutions at the heart of Scottish democracy," she writes, adding: "He was prepared to traumatise, time and again, the women at the centre of it all". The claims have been angrily rejected by Salmond's allies. The former SNP leader died of a heart attack in North Macedonia last year, aged 69. The independence referendum Nicola Sturgeon recalls a "totally uncharacteristic sense of optimism" as Scotland prepared to vote on whether to become an independent nation on 18 September 2014. It was arguably the defining event of her professional life and, in her view, a chance to "create a brighter future for generations to come". The campaign was tough, she says, partly because of what she calls unbalanced coverage by the British media including the BBC and partly because Salmond left her to do much of the heavy lifting. "It felt like we were trying to push a boulder up hill," she writes. PA Media Sturgeon claims Alex Salmond showed little interest in the "detail" of the independence white paper A key period in the lead-up to the poll was her preparation, as deputy first minister, of a white paper setting out the case for independence. At one point, she says, the magnitude of the task left her in "utter despair" and "overcome by a feeling of sheer impossibility". "I ended up on the floor of my home office, crying and struggling to breathe. It was definitely some kind of panic attack," she writes. Sturgeon says Salmond "showed little interest in the detail" of the document and she was "incandescent" when he flew to China shortly before publication without having read it. "He promised he would read it on the plane. I knew his good intention would not survive contact with the first glass of in-flight champagne," she writes. Operation Branchform Sturgeon describes her "utter disbelief" and despair when police raided her home in Glasgow and arrested her husband, Peter Murrell, on 5 April 2023. "With police tents all around it, it looked more like a murder scene than the place of safety it had always been for me. I was devastated, mortified, confused and terrified." In the weeks that followed she says she felt like she "had fallen into the plot of a dystopian novel". Sturgeon calls her own arrest two months later as part of the inquiry into SNP finances known as Operation Branchform "the worst day" of her life. She was exonerated. Murrell, the former SNP chief executive, has been charged with embezzlement. The couple announced they were separating earlier this year. Getty Images Sturgeon described her house as looking like a murder scene Leading Scotland during the pandemic ForSturgeon, the coronavirus pandemic which struck the world five years ago still provokes "a torrent of emotion". Leading Scotland through Covid was "almost indescribably" hard and "took a heavy toll, physically and mentally", writes the former first minister. She says she will be haunted forever by the thought that going into lockdown earlier could have saved more lives and, in January 2024, after she wept while giving evidence to the UK Covid inquiry, she "came perilously close to a breakdown". "For the first time in my life, I sought professional help. It took several counselling sessions before I was able to pull myself back from the brink," she writes. PA Media Nicola Sturgeon appeared visibly upset when giving evidence to the Covid Inquiry Misogyny and sexism Scathing comments about the inappropriate behaviour of men are scattered throughout the book. "Like all women, since the dawn of time, I have faced misogyny and sexism so endemic that I didn't always recognize it as such," Sturgeon writes on the very first page. One grim story, from the first term of the Scottish Parliament which ran from 1999 to 2003, stands out. Sturgeon says a male MSP from a rival party taunted her with the nickname "gnasher" as he spread a false rumour that she had injured a boyfriend during oral sex. "On the day I found out about the story, I cried in one of the toilets in the Parliament office complex," she writes. She said it was only years later, after #MeToo, that she realised this had been "bullying of an overtly sexual nature, designed to humiliate and intimidate, to cut a young woman down to size and put her in her place". Her personal life PA Media Parts of the memoir are deeply personal. Nicola Sturgeon says she may have appeared to be a confident and combative leader but underneath she is a "painfully shy" introvert who has "always struggled to believe in herself." She writes in detail about the "excruciating pain" and heartbreak of suffering a miscarriage after becoming pregnant at the age of 40. "Later, what I would feel most guilty about were the days I had wished I wasn't pregnant," she says. Sturgeon touches on the end of her marriage, saying "I love him" but the strain of the past couple of years" was "impossible to bear." She also writes about her experience of the menopause, explaining that "one of my deepest anxieties was that I would suddenly forget my words midway through an answer" at First Minister's Question Time. "My heart would race whenever I was on my feet in the Chamber which was debilitating and stressful," she says. And she addresses "wild stories" about her having a torrid lesbian affair with a French diplomat by saying the rumours were rooted in homophobia. "The nature of the insult was water off a duck's back," she writes. "Long-term relationships with men have accounted for more than thirty years of my life, but I have never considered sexuality, my own included, to be binary. Moreover, sexual relationships should be private matters." What the future holds PA Media Sturgeon loves books and has often appeared at literary events such as Aye Write in Glasgow Nicola Sturgeon has a few regrets. These include pushing hard for a second independence referendum immediately after the UK voted — against Scotland's wishes — to leave the EUn, and branding the 2024 general election as a "de facto referendum" on independence. But now, she says, she is "excited about the next phase" of her life which she jokingly refers to as her "delayed adolescence". "I might live outside of Scotland for a period," Sturgeon writes. "Suffocating is maybe putting it too strongly, but I feel sometimes I can't breathe freely in Scotland," she tells the BBC's Newscast podcast. "This may shock many people to hear," she continues, "but I love London." She is also considering writing a novel. Nicola Sturgeon concludes her memoir by saying she believes Scotland will be independent within 20 years, insisting she will never stop fighting for that outcome and adding: "That, after all, is what my life has been about."
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Anger, fear and a total rejection of politics: the Palestine Action protest was a snapshot of Britain today
In the third month of this tense, parched summer, the British state is under severe strain. Stripped of resources by 14 years of reckless rightwing government, contorting itself to maintain relations with ever more extreme regimes abroad, expanding its security powers at home through ever more tortured logic, regarded by ever more voters with contempt, a once broadly respected institution is increasingly struggling to maintain its authority. You could see the strain on the faces of some of the police officers, reddening with exertion in the sun, as they arrested 521 people in Parliament Square on Saturday for displaying pieces of paper or cardboard with a seven-word message supporting the proscribed group Palestine Action. It was one of the biggest mass arrests in London's history. The many protesters who refused to be led away had to be lifted off the ground, one by one, without the exercise looking too coercive in front of the cameras. Then their floppy, uncooperative forms had to be carried by clusters of officers through the hostile crowd – to chants of 'genocide police!', 'shame on you!' and 'fascist scum!' – to a ring of police vans at the square's perimeter, which were then sometimes obstructed by further protesters, before they eventually drove away. So many officers were needed that some had come from Wales. When Tony Blair's Labour government introduced Welsh devolution 26 years ago, in times of more harmony and less scarcity, cooperation between the nations was probably not envisaged in this form. On Saturday, so that the capital's police custody system was not overwhelmed, those arrested were taken to 'makeshift outdoor processing centres', the Observer reported – as if during a general breakdown of law and order. Some of those released on bail then reportedly went back to the protest. 'Given the numbers of people arrested,' said the Metropolitan police, 'it would have been entirely unrealistic for officers to recognise individuals who returned to [the square].' 'Entirely unrealistic' is not a reassuring phrase for those who believe that the government's approach to Palestine Action is practical and based on sound law. If charged, those arrested will enter the overburdened criminal justice system and then, if found guilty, Britain's bursting jails. It's likely that further supporters of Palestine Action will follow. The organiser of Saturday's protest, Defend Our Juries, has promised a sustained campaign of 'mass, public defiance', to make the proscription of Palestine Action 'unworkable'. This amendment to the 2000 Terrorism Act – a less benign legacy of Blair than devolution – states that anyone who 'wears, carries or displays an article' publicly, 'in such a way… as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of' Palestine Action could be jailed for up to six months; and anyone who 'invites support for' the organisation could be jailed for up to 14 years. Authoritarianism and austerity have risen together in Britain, as the relatively generous public spending of the Blair years has receded and new waves of radical activism have formed over the climate crisis and the destruction of Palestine. Yet the possibility that austerity will make authoritarianism unaffordable, with too much of the government's funds swallowed up by the security state, does not seem prominent in Labour's thinking. The fact that Keir Starmer is a former director of public prosecutions and that the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has for many years been one of parliament's leading authorities on national security, has given them a lot of faith in law-and-order solutions to political problems. The Parliament Square protesters took a different view. They had been advised by Defend Our Juries not to give quotes to journalists, to avoid distracting from the protest's focus on the Palestine Action proscription and the genocide in Gaza. Yet the dozen protesters I spoke to informally all talked about Britain's police and politicians without the slightest deference, as part of a system that was failing, practically and ethically, to address our era's escalating crises. As the arrests went on and on, through the hot afternoon and into the evening, many of the protesters barely moved, but kept facing the same way, sitting on the ground with their placards carefully displayed and their backs to the Houses of Parliament. Partly, this was to provide a globally resonant image, but it was also to dramatise their rejection of the will of the Commons, where only 26 MPs voted against Palestine Action's proscription last month. Parliament likes to see itself as a historic defender of freedom and liberty, yet when panics about subversive groups are under way, its liberalism often evaporates. While the Commons narrows its views in times of crisis, the electorate sometimes does the opposite. Half of those arrested in the square were aged 60 or older – usually the most politically conservative demographic. Many had had middle-class careers in public service. Chatting among themselves on the grass in the quieter moments between police surges, they could almost have been taking a break between events at a book festival. One woman sat on a camping stool, wearing a panama hat. When I introduced myself, she said: 'I don't like the Guardian, I read the Telegraph.' The last time Labour was in office, opposition to its more draconian and militaristic policies also emerged across the political spectrum. The more rightwing members of this opposition can be questioned: are they as outraged when Tory governments support wars or suspend civil liberties? My sense is not. But either way, broad opposition erodes a government's legitimacy. At the 2005 election, after the Terrorism Act and the Iraq war, Blair still won, yet with almost a third fewer votes than when he came to power. With Labour more unpopular now, Starmer can less afford to alienate anti-war voters – much as his most illiberal subordinates might want to. Yet any electoral consequences from the scenes in Parliament Square, and from likely sequels, are hardly the only things at stake in the Palestine Action controversy. At mid-afternoon on Saturday, with the police cordon tightening around us, I got talking to two elderly protesters who had watched people being arrested beside them. 'I'm in two minds about carrying on with this,' one of them said, opening and closing her piece of cardboard with its illegal message. Defiant earlier, she now seemed frightened. The legally safe space for protest in Britain is shrinking again. Meanwhile in Gaza, there's no safe space for anything at all. Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
