Good morning, Broadsheet readers! CVS is pulling back on mergers and acquisitions, A.I. innovations could be leaving women behind, and Fortune senior writer Maria Aspan reports on the likely outcomes of two landmark #MeToo lawsuits on Wall Street. Have a wonderful Thursday!
- Case closed. Six months ago, the financial industry seemed headed for a long-delayed legal reckoning over sexual harassment and gender bias. Two long-simmering and high-profile lawsuits, against TCW Group and Goldman Sachs, were scheduled to start trial this month and next.
But now one of those trials will never happen—and the second is also in doubt. Former TCW employee Sara Tirschwell has quietly settled her five-year-old lawsuit against the bond trading giant, I reported for Fortune this week. Tirschwell had alleged that her supervisor sexually harassed her and that the company fired her in retaliation for reporting it; TCW had denied the allegations.
The lawsuit has been closely watched as one of the first—and only—post-#MeToo efforts to hold a large financial firm publicly accountable for Wall Street’s widely-acknowledged sexist culture. Most such claims are never publicly aired in courtrooms, thanks to employers’ widespread use of mandatory arbitration agreements.
Tirschwell had not been required to sign such an agreement, and her case was finally supposed to start trial on Monday. But instead, TCW and Tirschwell “resolved their litigation pursuant to a confidential settlement agreement,” spokespeople for both parties told me. Neither would discuss any additional details.
Meanwhile, the outcome of a much larger, and much older, lawsuit against Goldman Sachs is also in question. About 1,400 current and former employees are suing the investment bank over claims of gender discrimination, in a class action that is scheduled to go to trial next month. (Goldman denies the allegations.) Lead plaintiff Cristina Chen-Oster, a former Goldman Sachs vice president, first filed a federal gender-bias complaint against the bank in 2005—yes, 18 years ago.
But now that trial, too, is in doubt. Goldman is trying to settle the class action and has discussed paying around $200 million to do so, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. (Representatives for Goldman and Chen-Oster declined to comment to Fortune.)
Anne Shaver, a partner at law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein and one of the attorneys representing Chen-Oster and her fellow plaintiffs, told me last year that a public trial would be a tipping point for Wall Street. That now seems unlikely, but Chen-Oster’s and Tirschwell’s cases progressed further than most—and have raised awareness of the culture still facing many women on Wall Street every step of the way.
Maria Aspan
maria.aspan@fortune.com
@mariaaspan
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