In what plaintiff’s counsel called one of the more significant arbitration employment law awards in North Carolina, global financial services provider Morgan Stanley was ordered to pay more than $1.6 million after being found liable for sex and age discrimination against a 51-year-old, white, male plaintiff.
The ruling came after several years of arbitration and a nine-day trial.
Josh Van Kampen of Van Kampen Law in Charlotte, an attorney for plaintiff Charles Randall, said the April 13 award included back pay, punitive damages and attorneys’ fees and costs.
Van Kampen said that the arbitrator, Terrence Lee Croft of Atlanta, made broad findings of institutional bias in favor of women at Morgan Stanley. Specifically, the company operated “a corporate culture steeped on giving women preferential treatment.” The discrimination was so overt, Van Kampen said, that it was the theme of a “smoking gun” video produced for a Morgan Stanley annual meeting.
“Claimant went big in this arbitration by challenging that Morgan Stanley operated a corporate culture that explicitly favored women and disfavored older white males, and the arbitrator agreed and issued a large punitive damage award,” Van Kampen said.
According to Croft’s findings, Morgan Stanley operated a facially discriminatory bonus plan incentivizing discrimination in favor of women, Latinos and African Americans. The company offered a formulaic metrics-based diversity award and a supplemental diversity award tied to the...
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