Three female senators are probing the Securities and ExchangeCommission and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority on howwidespread sexual harassment is in the financial servicessector.

According to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data, the“finance and insurance” sector generated the ninth-largest numberof sexual harassment claims filed with the agency from 2005 through2015, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.;and Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nevada, wrote in their letters to thetwo regulators.

The financial services industry employs more than 6 millionpeople, the senators wrote, and while other “high-level financialmanagers were forced to step down amid harassment allegations” inthe last year, the financial sector “has had fewer publicrevelations of sexual harassment” than other industries.

“The silence,” the lawmakers argued, “appears to result fromstrong 'cultural and financial forces' in the industry thatdiscourage speaking out, including payout of large settlements withnondisclosure agreements to harassment victims, class-actionprohibitions, and forced arbitration.”

The SEC's Office of Minority and Women Inclusion tasked with“assessing the diversity policies and practices of entitiesregulated” by the SEC, and through a set of Joint Standards issuedby the office and other financial regulators in June 2015, putsOMWI in a position to provide the agencies “with unique insightinto sexual harassment in the financial sector,” the senatorssaid.

The senators asked the securities regulator to answer five questions,including to lay out the steps the SEC OMWI has taken, sinceissuing the Joint Standards, “to encourage financial firms toinstitute policies and disciplinary systems that preventinappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace, including sexualharassment.”

In their letter to FINRA, the lawmakers note that in theself-regulator's Dispute Resolution data, “discrimination orharassment” — a category thatincludes discrimination on the basis of disability, age, gender,race, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, employmentdiscrimination, and sexual harassment — was one of the top 15 controversies listed inintra-industry FINRA cases in 2017.

Of the three questions the senators asked FINRA to answer, one was:“Of FINRA awards that went unpaid from 2010-2018, what is thedollar amount linked to arbitration awards related to workplaceharassment, including sexual harassment?”