Intern death leads to calls for shake-up of culture Banks in the City of London are facing calls to overhaul the working culture for younger staff following the death of a 21 year-old intern at Bank of America. Moritz Erhardt, an intern at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London was found dead last week in the shower of his temporary residence in east London, it emerged yesterday. A Bank of America spokesman confirmed that the German business studies undergraduate had died, but said the bank had not yet been made aware of the cause of his death. He declined to comment on online reports that Mr Erhardt's death was due to an epileptic fit after he worked until 6am three days in a row. Bankers said working hours for interns were tough and often stretched beyond midnight but that it would be unusual for an intern to do two or even three all-nighters. Analysts and associates have to work like dogs. But interns would not be trusted to do such long working hours as they are seen as too inexperienced," one banker said. Mr Erhard wrote on his blog that he had a "highly competitive and ambitious nature" because his family had always expected him to excel in life. Intern Aware, a charity campaigning for the better treatment of interns, hit out at what it said was a 100-hour working culture for students who spend their summers working at investment banks. Ben Lyons, the charity's co-founder, said there needed to be a "change in culture and HR procedures where employees are assessed not on the total number of hours they are able to grind out, but on the quality of work they are able to produce." Mr Erhardt was in the sixth week of a seven week internship, which paid around £2.700 a month, when he died. He had previously completed internships at KPMG, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank. A Bank of America spokesman said: "He was popular among his peers and was a highly diligent intern at our company with a promising future. Our first thoughts are with his family and we send our condolences to them at this difficult time. Chris Roebuck, a visiting professor of leadership at Cass Business School who has held senior HR roles at international banks, said that overworking junior employees was an increasing problem in the City. "For reasons related to an individual's ambition or the current employment market, people are pretty desperate to get jobs," he said. Some employers are exploiting that fact, pushing people past the point where it makes sense for their health or from a business perspective. Mr Roebuck said conditions had worsened following the financial crisis as many institutions have been reducing headcount. He said bosses had a "moral and legal duty" to ensure employees were not pushing themselves too far. But several bankers pointed out that internships were used as recruitment tools. "Internships are not designed to be a sweatshop or to give everyone a horrible feel," one said. Epilepsy Action, the charity, said there were about 600,000 people in the UK who have the condition, of which about 1,000 die each year from epilepsy-related causes. The group said that a number of factors can trigger seizures, including a sleep deprivation, stress and a lack of food.