Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) is looking into the working conditions of an intern who died while working for the bank’s London operations. The bank is investigating whether overwork played a role in the student’s death.
Bank of America intern dies
Mark Scott of the New York Times’ DealBook reports that Moritz Erhardt, a business student from Germany, died in his student housing in London on Aug. 15. According to DealBook, social network postings suggest that he worked extremely long hours during his internship and that he might have been overworked. A report in the New Yorker suggests that Erhardt might have suffered from epilepsy and may have had a seizure. Extreme exhaustion can sometimes cause epileptic seizures.
Erhardt’s social networking profiles show that in addition to interning at Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), he has also interned in the past at Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), KPMG Consulting and Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE:DB) (ETR:DBK).
The working culture in London’s financial district
The student’s death has called attention to what many consider to be part of the culture in London’s financial industry. Many are questioning whether interns should be working all night and putting in more than 60 hours every week. Competition for full-time positions in the financial industry in London are especially difficult, and as such, many interns put in exceptionally long weeks in an attempt to secure one of the few coveted full-time positions upon graduation.
Bank of America investigating
Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) said today that it was creating a senior working group which would look over the way its interns and other junior employees were being treated. The bank did not say who would be in the group or how long they would take to review the working conditions. It also did not provide any indications about what might happen after the review is complete.
