“The plain text of the EFAA does not limit when a plaintiff may allege a sexual harassment claim or exercise her rights under the EFAA.”
The EFAA allows a plaintiff to make an election to proceed in court upon discovering a sexual harassment claim even if she had initially pursued other claims in arbitration, the Ninth Circuit declared, allowing a former CFO for a clinical drug development company—who had participated in arbitration proceedings for over a year before discovering that her workplace mistreatment was motivated because of her sex—to elect to end arbitration and proceed in court. Further, held the court, a sex-based hostile work environment claim under the FEHA is a “sexual harassment dispute” under the EFAA. Dissenting, Judge Rawlinson was “unpersuaded that [the CFO’s] belated invocation of the EFAA was in conformance with the provisions of the statute” (Ding v. Structure Therapeutics, Inc., No. 25-1532 (9th Cir. Aug. 19, 2026)).
Ideal phenotype. When the company, in 2021, began a search for a CFO to take it through an initial public offering (IPO), the CEO circulated an email outlining his “ideal phenotype” for the position, suggesting, as an example, two men with investment banking backgrounds. Because the board of directors, however, preferred to emphasize diversity in its recruitment efforts to appeal to third-party investors, the company hired a woman with a pharmacology Ph.D. and over 20 years of experience in biopharmaceutical equity research and...
The Essential Services Commission has cancelled the Victorian Energy Upgrades (VEU) accreditation of two businesses for allegedly providing false information about their energy efficiency projects...