A former JP Morgan private wealth management executive who said she was one of her department's top producers sued the bank yesterday, saying she was fired for being a whistleblower against a long-time client, Reuters reported.

Jennifer Sharkey alleged in a statement in a Manhattan court that she was fired last August after urging the second-largest US bank to break ties with an Israeli customer who had been a bank client for 20 years and generated some $600,000 of business annually. The customer was not identified in the complaint, the report said.

Sharkey said she was fired from her vice president position because of her role in an internal probe into the client's alleged involvement in mail fraud, bank fraud and money laundering, and was let go six days after submitting a report urging the bank to drop the client.

She contended that prior to her removal, her activities resulted in her being removed from some client accounts and excluded from client meetings. She also said she was deprived of her 2009 bonus.

A spokeswoman for JP Morgan declined to comment.

Recent events have highlighted controversy over how so-called whistleblowers in banking are treated, as in the case of Bradley Birkenfeld, the former UBS employee who was jailed for 40 months after alerting US authorities to the Swiss bank’s involvement in helping wealthy US citizens evade taxes. UBS later paid $780 million to settle criminal charges. Birkenfeld began serving his sentence in January.