More than 20 women have brought sexism claims against Merrill Lynch since 1999, The Times has learnt.

The Wall Street investment bank is fighting multimillion-pound cases brought by Stephanie Villalba, 42, the most senior woman to bring such a claim, and Elizabeth Weston, 29, a solicitor. In the United States last month, the bank settled a ten-year battle with 1,000 female brokers who claimed it had a culture of bias against women. It has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements. British tribunal records reveal that 21 women have made similar allegations against Merrill Lynch in the UK in five years.

The bank settled most out of court — using confidentiality clauses to prevent the grievances becoming public. Other big banks have faced far fewer claims: JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Schroder Smith Salomon Barney each faced four claims, while Credit Suisse First Boston has defended twelve and Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank ten each.

Merrill Lynch said it had had double the number of claims because it made 20,000 redundancies in 2001-03. In a statement it said: “This is an average of three or four complaints a year in a business in the UK with some 5,000 people. No doubt, some of the complaints had merit and some did not but we think that even a single incident of offensive behaviour is unacceptable.”

But a senior executive at JP Morgan told The Times: “We have all had redundancies. There is something systematic going on at Merrill Lynch.”

Mrs Villalba, who earned £1 million a year, is seeking record damages of £7.5 million. She claims she was told to sit in the stewardess’s seat on a private jet and serve drinks. Merrill Lynch says that she was not up to her job.

Mrs Weston, who was a solicitor for MLIM, will tell an employment tribunal this year that a senior lawyer commented on her breasts, speculated about her sex life and asked men at a Christmas party if they could imagine her masturbating.

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