Social media platform Pinterest agreed to a series of diversity, equity and inclusion workplace reforms to settle a lawsuit by shareholders lead by the Rhode Island pension system, General Treasurer Seth Magaziner announced.
The reforms are valued at $50 million and resolve shareholder complaints that Pinterest’s Board of Directors failed to respond to allegations of discrimination against women and people of color working at the company.
Magaziner, who is running for governor, called the settlement the “first of its kind to embrace diversity goals around a company’s product.”
“The proposed settlement calls for sustained efforts by Pinterest that will put diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) at the forefront of its internal goals and business operations,” the proposed settlement filed in federal court Wednesday said. “Additionally, it will resolve this highly contested, complex derivative action while delivering long-term meaningful benefits to Pinterest and its stockholders.
The terms of the settlement include having Pinterest do regular pay equity assessments, making the platform user experience more inclusive, creating “executive accountability for DEI culture” and releasing former employees who made race or gender discrimination claims from non-disclosure agreements.
Pinterest has settled a lawsuit brought against it by shareholders who claimed that the company’s workplace discrimination against women and racial minorities hurt its reputation, according to NBC News. The company reportedly agreed to spend $50 million on improving its diversity and equity, and will let former employees talk about racial or gender discrimination they experienced, even if they were bound by a non-disclosure agreement. Other financial details of the settlement weren’t disclosed.
The lawsuit was filed against the company’s executives in November 2020, with shareholder claiming that the company was acting irresponsibly by doing nothing to address “widespread claims of race and gender discrimination.” The complaint also accused the company’s CEO of “surrounding himself with yes-men and marginalizing women who dared to challenge Pinterest’s White, male leadership clique.”
Pinterest pledged $50 million to overhaul its corporate culture and promote diversity as part of an agreement to resolve allegations that it discriminated against women and people of color, according to court documents and statements from the plaintiffs and the company.
The settlement was announced on Wednesday by Seth Magaziner, the general treasurer of Rhode Island, who was acting on behalf of the Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island and other Pinterest shareholders that had sued the company, which is known for its colorful virtual pinboards.
The shareholders had accused Pinterest’s board of directors of failing to respond to a culture of discrimination and retaliation against women and people of color. By allowing the discrimination to continue, the shareholders argued, the board had failed to act in the best interests of stockholders.
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Under the settlement, an audit committee of the board will help oversee changes intended to create equal opportunities for employees. The changes require that a board member act as a co-sponsor with the chief executive on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, according to the plaintiff’s legal team.
The settlement also releases former employees from nondisclosure agreements and creates an external ombuds office for employees and external audits that review performance ratings, promotions and compensation across gender and racial categories.
Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc. didn’t need to ever sell a dose of a drug to have wielded monopoly power over it, a Boston federal judge ruled Monday, rejecting the company’s bid for an early win on antitrust claims in the multidistrict suit.
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The antitrust suit, set for a Jan. 10 trial, alleges that Ranbaxy manipulated the Food and Drug Administration’s generic drug approval process to ice out competitors from developing generic versions of antiviral drug Valcyte, high blood pressure drug Diovan, and reflux medication Nexium.
The first to file a complete application for a generic drug blocks competitors for 180 days from marketing the same generic. The plaintiffs who paid for the three drugs claim Ranbaxy fooled the FDA into granting the exclusivity periods by filing applications with missing, incorrect or fraudulent information.
Ranbaxy countered that while it applied to develop the three drugs, it never got so far as to sell generics of Nexium or Valcyte, making it impossible for the company to have had a monopolistic hold on the market.
But the lack of sales doesn’t doom the case, the judge said.
“Within the highly regulated market for pharmaceuticals, plaintiffs have proffered sufficient evidence to create a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether Ranbaxy maintained monopoly power due to its first-filer status and the resulting exclusionary periods,” Judge Gorton said.
Looking at Ranbaxy’s alleged conduct this way, the judge added, “provides strong evidence that Ranbaxy maintained the ‘ability to lessen or destroy competition in the relevant market,’ the determining factor in assessing monopoly power.”
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The suit was consolidated from multiple cases in April 2019. Two groups of buyers — direct purchasers such as drug wholesalers and end-payors such as health care plans — were granted class certification in May.
The buyers contend Ranbaxy wrongly obtained the exclusivity periods and that this delayed the eventual launch of generic versions of all three drugs by other manufacturers, resulting in higher prices. The suit includes claims for violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, federal and state antitrust laws, and state consumer protection laws.
The litigation followed investigations into Ranbaxy by the FDA and U.S. Department of Justice that resulted in guilty pleas and a $500 million fine against the drugmaker for lying to regulators and selling drugs that fell short of federal safety standards.
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The direct buyers are represented by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, Hilliard Shadowen LLP, Radice Law Firm PC, Sperling & Slater PC, Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP, Wexler Wallace LLP, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and Nussbaum Law Group PC.
Grant & Eisenhofer PA and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC have agreed to a stipulation that would consolidate two lawsuits filed in Delaware Chancery Court over a $1 billion merger that created XL Fleet Corp., and are seeking to serve as co-lead counsel for the proposed shareholder class.
In a stipulation and proposed order filed with Chancellor Kathaleen S. McCormick on Tuesday, the two firms said they “agree that the related actions involve the same subject matter and [the] same common questions of law and fact and that the administration of justice will be served by consolidating the related actions.” The chancellor had yet to sign off on the proposed order as of early Wednesday afternoon.
In September, investor Cody Laidlaw filed a proposed class action, alleging that directors of the special purpose acquisition company Pivotal Investment Corp. II pushed for the December merger with Boston-based startup XL Hybrids Inc., which manufacturers systems to convert combustion engines into electric hybrids, even though they knew it was bad for shareholders.
Laidlaw asserted that insiders drove an unfair “value-destroying” deal process that misled shareholders. He sued the company and a raft of its former or current officers and directors, including former Pivotal Chairman and CEO Jonathan J. Ledecky. Ledecky remained on XL Fleet’s post-merger board, the complaint said.
Created for the purposes of doing a deal, Pivotal raised $230 million in an initial public offering in July 2019 with promises it would return investors’ cash with interest if it failed to find an acquisition target within 18 months, the complaint said.
But Pivotal’s founders and controlling shareholders, whose founders’ shares had no redemption rights, would have lost their investment if the company was liquidated, the complaint said.
Motivated to strike a deal, officers failed to disclose they had family ties with XL Hybrids, and didn’t tell Class A shareholders how the deal would dilute the value of their shares, the complaint alleges. The officers also failed to disclose that Pivotal would contribute under $7 per share to the merger, even though public investors had paid $10 per share, according to the complaint.
The company’s per-share price dropped to a low of $5.41 within months of the merger. Pivotal stockholders would have gotten $10.09 per share if it had liquidated rather than merged, Laidlaw’s complaint said.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Nonprofit org, founded by Mitch Landrieu, invests in leaders expanding race and class equity.
NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 16, 2021 – E Pluribus Unum (EPU) announced its 2021 UNUM Fellows today including North Carolina’s own State Senator Jay Chadhuri and State Representative Ashton Clemmons. The select cohort of Southern elected leaders will participate in a year-long program to advance racial and economic equity in their states through sustainable change and collaboration. Just as with the inaugural cohort of EPU UNUM Fellows that included local elected officials, the organization will provide resources, training, and technical expertise along the journey.
“EPU’s UNUM Fellows are on the front lines of shaping America and are passionate to unite and build upon our country’s promise, said Founder and President Mitch Landrieu, a former Louisiana state legislator, mayor of New Orleans, and Louisiana Lt. Governor. “When leaders emphasize equity across race and class, then we begin tearing down the old walls intentionally built to divide us. Our communities, states, and America herself thrives when united and EPU Fellows are a part of making us better.”
Upon receiving the recognition, State Senator Chadhuri and State Representative Clemmons noted, “A North Carolina that keeps striving for race and class equity is a better North Carolina; and we are honored to partner with E Pluribus Unum as UNUM Fellows continuing on this important journey for our state and all North Carolinians.”
E Pluribus Unum’s 2021 UNUM Fellows are:
- Teri Anulewicz, State Representative of Georgia
- Christopher Bell, State Representative of Mississippi
- Park Cannon, State Representative of Georgia
- Jay Chaudhuri, State Senator of North Carolina
- Ashton Clemmons, State Representative of North Carolina
- Royce Duplessis, State Representative of Louisiana
- Aimee Adatto Freeman, State Representative of Louisiana
- Juandalynn Givan, State Representative of Alabama
- Harold Love, State Representative of Tennessee
- Kim Schofield, State Representative of Georgia
- Zakiya Summers, State Representative of Mississippi
Learn more about E Pluribus Unum’s UNUM Fellows.
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About E Pluribus Unum
Founded by former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu in 2018, E Pluribus Unum (EPU) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to build a more just, equitable, and inclusive South, uprooting the barriers that have long divided the region by race and class. Incubated at Emerson Collective, EPU is focused on changing the divisive narratives that perpetuate systemic and interpersonal racism, cultivating and empowering courageous leaders who are advancing racial equity, and championing transformative policy change.
A South Florida lawyer is part of the team of litigators asking for more than $169 million in attorney fees.
The move comes after a federal district judge in Michigan gave the nod to a more than $600 million settlement in a years-long battle over contaminated water in Flint.
Theodore J. Leopold, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll in Palm Beach Gardens said that reaching this partial settlement as co-lead counsel for the victims required overcoming several obstacles, some of which are still pending.
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“There was a minority community that was preyed upon by the, at the time, governor of Michigan,” Leopold said. “The injustice that occurred is something that we should never lose sight of, and we, as lawyers, should be there to stop these types of injustices.”
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One of the challenges Leopold faced early on was that Michigan asserted it had sovereign immunity from these types of lawsuits. He said plaintiff counsel had to bypass the threshold to establish key areas of constitutional law to show that the state’s conduct was conscious indifference.
Leopold said a second challenge was battling defendants in multiple courts over their opposition to their lawsuits.
“We had probably from eight to 12 appeals that were not just to the Michigan Supreme Court, but also to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals,” Leopold said. “There was a long trilogy of cases, fields that had to be addressed.”
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Leopold also said the two defendants have appealed for appellate review of class certification against them. The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal ruling will determine if the remaining defendants will go to trial.
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“Hopefully, the infrastructure bill will address some of the water contamination issues not only PFAS related areas, which is a very big area right now, but also as it relates to piping infrastructure,” Leopold said, referring to toxic chemicals and polyfluoroalkyl substances. “Lead piping that’s all going to have to be replaced is one of the tenants of the infrastructure bill.”
For years, thousands of detainees awaiting their trials in immigration court were paid $1 a day to mop, scrub toilets, do laundry, and myriad other jobs at the Washington state facility where they were being held. During that time, GEO Group, the company contracted with the government to run the facility, Northwest ICE Processing Center, was posting millions of dollars in profits.
On Nov. 2, that balance of power shifted. In an extraordinary decision, a federal jury in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington ordered GEO Group to provide $17.3 million in backpay to more than 10,000 former and current detainees, some of whom had performed the virtually-unpaid labor as far back as 2005.
In addition to the jury award, federal Judge Robert Bryan issued an injunction halting GEO Group’s labor practice and requiring the company, going forward, to pay the state’s minimum wage—$13.69—to all detainees participating in the company’s Voluntary Worker Program. In response to a related lawsuit brought by Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, Judge Bryan also ordered GEO Group to pay the state $5.9 million on the grounds that the company had enjoyed “unjust enrichment” through unfair labor practices.
Those decisions, while limited to Washington state, could have powerful national implications, legal experts say. Many expect the federal court ruling to catalyze a wave of similar challenges in states with labor laws that mirror Washington’s. “I just don’t think a case of this magnitude … is going to go unnoticed across the country, that’s just not going to happen,” says Attorney General Ferguson, who says he plans to share the details and results of this case with other state attorneys general.
The legal reasoning employed by both the jury and Judge Bryan was straight-forward and far-reaching: immigrant detainees are not criminals. In the U.S., people who have been convicted of a crime are exempted from state labor laws while incarcerated. Immigrants, who are detained while they await civil proceedings to determine if they can remain in the U.S., fit a different category — and are therefore entitled to minimum wage for their labor.
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A nationwide ripple effect
It’s already getting attention. In Colorado, lawyers representing up to 40,000 immigrants in a similar class action lawsuit against GEO Group have submitted paperwork to the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado detailing how Judge Bryan ruled in the Washington case. The Colorado plaintiffs echo Washington Attorney General Ferguson’s argument almost exactly—that GEO Group unjustly enriched itself by paying detainees $1 a day for their labor. One plaintiff in that case, Alejandro Menocal, was paid $1 a day in 2014 for cleaning when he was detained at the Aurora Detention Facility, which was also run by GEO Group.
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Michael Hancock, an attorney who has represented immigrants at privately-run detention centers in the past, says the Washington state decision offers a crucial paradigm shift. For years, he says, federal courts have “conflated those criminal incarcerated prisoners with civil detainees under the immigration law.” While he and other attorneys representing immigrant detainees argued that was “an inappropriate analogy,” they haven’t, so far, found traction.
Earlier this year, Hancock represented Desmond Ndambi, who was paid $1 a day in 2017 to manage a library at New Mexico’s Cibola County Correctional Center in New Mexico, which was run by CoreCivic, a private company that contracted with the government to run the facility. At the end of 2019, a New Mexico District Judge dismissed the Cibola case. In March, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court judge’s dismissal.
Washington Judge Bryan called out the case by name in his opinion. “I hope that other judges who review these proceedings will not be swayed by the idea, as quoted in the Ndambi vs CoreCivic case…that ‘fair payment for prisoners is too outlandish to consider,’” he wrote.
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No good options
Immigrants who participated in the work programs at multiple CoreCivic and GEO Group locations describe long hours and abusive behavior by officers running the center, according to court documents. Hancock, who was part of a team of lawyers who conducted interviews with former detainees during its case against CoreCivic, says that many people accepted the dismal $1 per day wage because they wanted access to basic resources, like additional food or phone calls.
“It allows you to buy ramen noodles at the canteen to supplement what is otherwise a pretty dreary diet,” Hancock says. “It can allow you to make phone calls…Even though it’s a pittance, it’s something that allows you to sort of supplement what you’re getting from the detention facility, which isn’t much and can really improve your quality of life.”
A court has approved a settlement of more than $600 million — the majority of which will be paid by the state of Michigan — in a milestone in the years-long battle over contaminated water in Flint, one of the nation’s worst public health disasters.
The $626 million deal to settle most lawsuits filed by Flint residents is one of the largest in the state’s history, according to District Judge Judith Levy’s ruling. Children in Flint who were exposed to dangerous lead-contaminated drinking water are set to benefit in particular from the decision.
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Residents of the predominantly Black city of around 95,000 people complained of discolored and foul-smelling water and skin rashes after bathing, but their concerns were largely ignored. Some critics have since labeled the disaster an example of environmental racism.
“This is a historic and momentous day for the residents of Flint, who will finally begin to see justice served,” said Ted Leopold, one of the lead attorneys in the litigation, the Associated Press reported.
NPR’s Ailsa Chang talks with Ted Leopold, co-lead counsel for the people of Flint, Mich., after a judge approved a settlement for victims of the city’s water crisis.
AILSA CHANG, HOST: A federal judge has approved a $626 million settlement for victims of the Flint water crisis. Residents there were exposed to contaminated drinking water after the city switched its water source in a cost-saving move back in 2014. Ted Leopold is co-lead counsel for the people of Flint, and he joins us now.
Welcome.
TED LEOPOLD: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
CHANG: I want to drill down on some aspects of the judge’s decision today because she considered multiple objections to this settlement. One in particular was about the technology used by one firm to determine whether residents had lead contamination in their bones, which could help determine how much money a resident is entitled to in this settlement, right?
LEOPOLD: That’s correct. So one of the firms has what’s referred to as bone scanning. And their clients have gone, from what I understand, and some may continue to go through that process. But that’s only one aspect there. We have set up, for the community and those who want to participate, another aspect to be able to get a just and full recovery for their injuries and damages by going through neuropsychological testing. So we are going to have that testing with experts and doctors from around the country coming in and to test all of those individuals who wish to have that done – not only adults but children as well.
CHANG: OK, so a number of ways that a resident can determine how much money they will be owed.
LEOPOLD: That’s right.
CHANG: And there has been some pushback from residents who say that this deal is inadequate. Can Flint residents opt out of this settlement and pursue other separate lawsuits if they’re not happy with the particular amount here?
LEOPOLD: They can opt out. There was a time frame for both people who were going to object to make their objections, which Judge Levy has addressed, and also for people to have opted out of that process of the settlement. So all of that has been taken into consideration.
CHANG: But going forward, no one else can opt out at this point, right?
LEOPOLD: That’s right. They either participate or not.
CHANG: OK. But just to be clear, there are still outstanding separate lawsuits in addition to this class action related to what has happened in Flint, correct?
LEOPOLD: Right. There is. And I think that sort of brings up an issue to which you were just asking about in terms of being concerns of, quote, “not enough money,” if you will, by some people within the community. And, you know, in something like this, it has had such a catastrophic effect on a community and especially the Flint community that has gone through, historically, such hard times that, you know, no amount of money could ever cure what has happened. But we think that this is a large sum of money that can hopefully bring justice, or at least some semblance of justice, to what has occurred, bring some closure for people – but also that this $600-plus million is one aspect of the case. There are still additional engineering – private engineering companies that are defendants in the case. We – recently, Judge Levy has certified that case. And if that case doesn’t resolve, we are looking forward and working hard to prepare that case for trial. So there are additional funds that will be available.
CHANG: Ted Leopold is co-lead counsel for the people of Flint.
Thank you very much for joining us today.
LEOPOLD: Thank you.