Legal News

French Ad Firm Publicis Groupe Hit With $100M Discrimination Suit

By Chad Bray

French advertising firm Publicis Group SA on Thursday became the latest company to be hit with a gender discrimination lawsuit over its pay and promotion of women.

A former female executive, allegedly fired after she returned from maternity leave in January 2010, filed a $100 million lawsuit against Publicis and its MLSGroup unit on Thursday on behalf of a class of its female employees in the U.S. Click here for a copy of the complaint; here for the WSJ story.

The complaint was brought by Sanford Wittels & Heisler, which has brought similar discrimination suits against drugmaker Novartis AG’s U.S. unit and Toshiba Corp.’s U.S. business in recent years. The Novartis unit agreed last year to pay $175 million to settle the case.

The lawsuit alleges Publicis engaged in “systemic, company wide” discrimination against its female employees. “Publicis’s glass ceiling might as well be a cement wall,” the lawsuit said.

“We generally do not comment on pending litigation, but we can say that the fact that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission dismissed Ms da Silva’s charge reflects the lack of merit to her claims,” a Publicis spokeswoman said.

The Publicis lawsuit comes about a month before the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments in a closely watched 2001 lawsuit on behalf of as many 1.5 million female employees at Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 24, 2011 (boomark / email).