Neiman Marcus allegedly bungled multiple workplace complaints from senior execs including a lawyer who claims she was hospitalized for clinical depression caused by “unsustainable” work demands — and was later fired after she was diagnosed with brain cancer, The Post has learned.
Seasoned attorney Erin Borg claims Neiman Marcus overwhelmed her with work from the time of her hiring in 2022. The chain allegedly chinsed on support staff and tolerated her hostile co-workers — then looked the other way when she complained, according to a recent court filing obtained by The Post.
Following her bout of depression, Borg was diagnosed with glioblastoma and had to go on leave — only to be kicked to the curb when coming back from chemotherapy treatment last year after Neiman Marcus’ parent company was acquired, according to the filing.
“It simply broke me,” she told The Post.
Borg is among at least four former in-house lawyers who lodged formal complaints about a hostile work environment, a former Neiman Marcus executive who is not associated with Borg told The Post. Two of the complaints resulted in settlements, this source said.
Borg’s nightmare stint at Neiman Marcus included a colleague, Thomas Mattei, who Borg claims in the court docs was openly hostile towards her and joked about E. Jean Carroll’s sexual assault case against President Trump. He suggested that the retailer “capitalize” on the case since the alleged assault took place in the dressing room of Neiman Marcus’ sister company Bergdorf Goodman, according to the filing in federal bankruptcy court.
She lodged several complaints with the company about Mattei and her boss, Hannah Kim, who buried her with work, the filing stated.
“This seems to point to a failure of leadership overall at the company,” the source said, referring to the number of employment complaints.
The company denied every allegation in Borg’s complaint, according to a filing in the arbitration proceeding last year. Neiman Marcus, Kim and Mattei did not answer multiple requests for comment.
Geoffroy van Raemdonck was the chief executive of Neiman Marcus during Borg’s tenure from 2022 to 2025, with Saks Global acquiring the company in December 2024. He became CEO of the merged entity during its bankruptcy earlier this year. The company, which exited bankruptcy in June, has since been renamed Exemplar Luxury Group.
Borg initiated arbitration proceedings against Neiman Marcus, Mattei and Kim in July 2025. She alleged she had been pushed out of the company months earlier for formally complaining to the human resources department and to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about Mattei’s alleged behavior and the subsequent retaliation against her, according to the filing in the court in Houston, where the bankruptcy has been unfolding.
Borg is now including her original complaint as part of Saks Global’s bankruptcy case, urging the court to make sure she can collect a future arbitration award from any available insurance proceeds. The claim does not specify the amount of damages she is seeking.
The attorney is among thousands of unsecured creditors who have claims against the luxury retailer.
Borg, 46, is trying to fast-track her case as she continues to battle stage-four cancer, for which she flies to Germany to get treatments.
She tapped high-profile attorney Ari Wilkenfeld, who represented the NBC employee whose sexual misconduct accusations led to Matt Lauer’s ouster (he denied wrongdoing) and, more recently, glam journo Olivia Nuzzi in the wake of her reported sexting relationship with Robert Kennedy Jr.
Wilkenfeld alleges that Neiman Marcus delayed its responses last year and failed to pay arbitration fees — which held up the proceedings — for several months before its bankruptcy filing in January.
“Unfortunately, Neiman Marcus appears to be trying to outwait Erin, who according to the best projections, would have succumbed to her illness over a half a year ago,” he said in a statement.
A former lawyer for PetSmart, Borg was hired as Neiman Marcus’ vice president and assistant general counsel in April 2022. Her responsibilities and hours at the luxury department store chain expanded “significantly” and quickly morphed into an “unsustainable workload,” as the struggling retailer skimped on hiring support staff, Borg’s filing said.
She was unable to take a single work day off for 11 straight months after she was hired, according to the document.
She also alleged that the legal department had a high number of vacancies that were not filled.
“It was ever-changing and not stable,” she said of the unit.
A mother of two elementary school-age daughters, Borg claims she was subjected to “hostility and sexism” by Mattei, who allegedly refused to collaborate and “disparaged” her to others, according to the filing.
She reported their interactions to HR, including the alleged comment about E. Jean Carroll.
Mattei allegedly joked that Neiman Marcus should “capitalize” on the Carroll case for “marketing” purposes by placing a life-sized cutout of Trump in the women’s dressing rooms and handing out “prizes” to customers who noticed it, according to the court filing.
“When Tom made that casual rape joke, I was on a conference call with him and Hannah boarding a plane at the airport, so I couldn’t say something at the time,” Borg told The Post. “But it’s not appropriate in any workplace. And as the head employment lawyer and as someone who was raped at age 29, I had to speak up.”
The situation became so severe that Kim insisted Mattei and Borg participate in a series of meetings attended by Kim and a human resource rep to “mend fences” and “resolve tensions” between them, according to the filing.
The meetings with Mattei left Borg emotionally depleted and Mattei “continued to retaliate” against her by excluding her and her paralegal from important meetings, according to the filing.
At the same time, Kim allegedly promised her more resources and a promotion – with a catch.
Borg was told that she and Mattei would be promoted at the same time to co-deputies general counsel, according to the filing.
The promotion was delayed, according to the filing, because of concerns over Mattei’s “professionalism and misconduct.”
By March 2023, Borg’s mental health deteriorated and she checked into a facility for one month to treat clinical depression.
Her marriage also fell apart at that time, she told The Post.
When she returned to work in June, Kim informed her that she would not be promoted, but Mattei would be – and he was eventually given the job of chief legal officer in February 2024, becoming Borg’s supervisor after Kim left the company, the filing claims.
Around the same time, Borg began having seizures, including two that occurred after meetings with Mattei, according to the filing.
When Borg informed Mattei that she would need to take medical leave, he “responded with agitation” and asked whether she’d “break from her leave” to participate in a “crucial” call, the filing claims.
When she returned to work in October after six months’ leave, Borg was immediately placed on administrative leave until she was laid off in February 2025, according to the document.
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