(March 7 – 17:30 ET) – Bloomberg is reporting that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has found that Wall Street titan Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. fired a former bond trader for complaining about discrimination.

The EEOC found that MSDW retaliated against former bond trader Allison Schieffelin, 39, by terminating her after she complained that the firm discriminated against her by passing her over for promotion to managing director because she’s female.

In her original claim, filed back in 1998, Schieffelin alleged that her performance evaluations were always “exceptional,” but she was passed over for promotion in December 1997. She says the firm said she’d never make managing director, although it refused to say why, and she claimed it was because of her gender, as less-qualified men were promoted ahead of her. At the time she was earning US$1.35 million in salary and bonus.

After complaining in 1998, she was fired last October for “insubordination” and “inappropriate conduct”.

MSDW may settle the suit with the EEOC, which enforces federal employment-discrimination laws, or it may face a federal suit from the agency. “This would seem to suggest an ultimatum: Either settle and face a federal court case, ” Allan Ripp, a spokesman for Schieffelin, told Bloomberg. MSDW and the EEOC didn’t comment.