Suit Alleges Bias by Japanese Bank

Charging “nationalistic and racial” discrimination, a former vice president of a Japanese bank filed suit Thursday against the bank, saying he was underpaid and forced out of his job because he is white.

In the suit filed in San Diego Superior Court, Karl Biniarz, the former manager of the Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank branch in San Diego, says he left after he was slapped by a senior Japanese bank executive, in front of other top Japanese bank managers, at a Los Angeles business meeting.

The suit also claims that Biniarz was told by Japanese executives not to hire blacks or women as commercial loan officers and that the executives made “disparaging remarks” about Mexicans, Biniarz’s lawyer said Wednesday. In addition, the bank explicitly sought Japanese borrowers, purposely excluding non-Japanese, attorney Roy L. Landers said.

“Over a series of months or years, the bank, in what I would call a profligate manner, totally, as a matter of nationalism, made it clear they had no banking interest unless it was to advance the cause of Japanese,” Landers said.

A bank vice president at its U.S. headquarters in Los Angeles said there was no merit to the charges.

“I think that you have to understand that the bank denies any and all of those allegations,” Vice President Linda Cormier said. “Beyond that, not having seen the complaint, I don’t think we could comment further.”

Dai-Ichi Kangyo is among the world’s largest banks, with assets last March of $497 billion.

Among the suit’s seven claims are charges that the bank violated state laws barring discrimination in hiring, and that bank officials humiliated and ridiculed Biniarz, causing him emotional distress. It also accuses Executive Vice President Makoto Sekino of assault and battery, saying that Sekino hit Biniarz at a meeting last March 16.

The suit seeks lost wages for Biniarz, who was making $62,000 annually but has been without a job since he left the bank four days after that meeting. It also asks for punitive damages.

According to the suit, Dai-Ichi Kangyo hired Biniarz on Sept. 14, 1987, to run its San Diego branch. Biniarz, 50, who lives in Vista with his wife and their 3-year-old child, had served as an officer or manager with banks in Luxembourg, Germany, the Soviet Union, Egypt and the United States.

Shortly after he took over as the San Diego branch manager, Biniarz was told by a senior bank officer that it was important that the bank have a “proper profile,” the suit says. The officer, who is not named in the suit, said that meant Biniarz was not to hire women or blacks as commercial loan officers.

Bank officers also informed recruiters not to provide black or female job candidates, the suit says.

At one point, Biniarz hired two Filipino tellers, and was told by supervisors that “he could have hired a more qualified type person,” the suit says. Biniarz “was given the strong inference that his supervisors meant either (white) or Japanese,” the suit says.

Supervisors also denied Biniarz authority to make loans to non-Japanese, the suit says. Directed to “cater to” Japanese borrowers, Biniarz “was forced” to give them “preferential interest rate concessions” and to deny that advantage to non-Japanese, the suit says.

Bank officers specifically told Biniarz that they “considered Mexican applications for loans as a high risk,” although there was no objective reason for that belief, the suit says.

Biniarz said he complained about what the suit calls the bank’s “policies of obvious discrimination.” His annual bonus was cut below the sums Japanese managers received, he was excluded from meetings and he was told he was incompetent, even though his performance reviews were good, the suit claims.

In addition, he was treated with “disdain and disrespect,” the suit says. At a party, according to the suit, he tried to shake the hand of a Japanese vice president--who is not named in the suit--and was told by the officer, who laughed and said: “I don’t shake hands in America. Too many homosexuals and too much AIDS.”

At the March 16 meeting in Los Angeles, Biniarz discussed “the bank’s lack of support for (him) and his local branch in San Diego” while talking with Japanese bank mangers about a proposed $9.8-million loan, the suit says.

Sekino, an executive vice president, slapped Biniarz, the suit says. “He took his left arm and gave me a chop across the chest,” delivered a lecture about loyalty, then, without apology, resumed the meeting, Biniarz said Wednesday.

Four days later, Biniarz resigned, feeling he had been forced out, according to the suit.