Two customers accuse a suburban bank of ethnic bias in an Oakland County civil case covered by L.L. Brasier of the Free Press. The suit alleges bank executives used derogatory terms to refer to people with ties to India.
Brasier writes:
The small bank is in Novi and Farmington Hills.Executives at Lotus Bank in Novi are accused of berating two Indian customers and exchanging e-mails calling Indians by derogatory names. ...
The lawsuit, naming bank president Neal Searle and executive vice presidents Richard Bauer and John Westerheide, says the bank violated the civil rights of Jasit Takhar and Anil Gupta by creating a hostile business environment.
Lotus, with a branch in Farmington Hills, was incorporated in 2007 to serve metro Detroit's growing Indian community. Fourteen of its 17 board members are of Indian ethnicity, as are about 30% of its customers.
In an email cited in the court filing, according to the newspaper, Searle suggested renaming Lotus as "Bank United Mumbai, or BUM for short." The lawsuit quotes other messages with derogatory language, including "chimps" as an apparent reference to bank directors who are Indian.
The lawsuit stems from a dispute over a $1.4-million mortgage that Takhar and Gupta obtained in 2008 to buy a Travelodge in Jackson.
