Result: $215 million settlement
Year: 2023

Chen-Oster v. Goldman Sachs, No. 10-6950 (S.D.N.Y.)

Lieff Cabraser served as Co-Lead Counsel for plaintiffs in a gender discrimination class action lawsuit against Goldman Sachs alleging Goldman Sachs engaged in systemic and pervasive discrimination against its female professional employees in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and New York City Human Rights Law. The complaint charged that, among other things, Goldman Sachs paid its female professionals less than similarly situated males, disproportionately promoted men over equally or more qualified women, and offered better business opportunities and professional support to its male professionals. In 2012, the Court denied defendant’s motion to strike class allegations.

On March 10, 2015, Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV issued a recommendation against certifying the class. In April of 2017, District Court Judge Analisa Torres granted plaintiffs’ motion to amend their complaint and add new representative plaintiffs, denied Goldman Sachs’ motions to dismiss the new plaintiffs’ claims, and ordered the parties to submit proposals by April 26, 2017, on a process for addressing Magistrate Judge Francis’ March 2015 Report and Recommendation on class certification.

On March 30, 2018, Judge Torres issued an order certifying the plaintiffs’ damages class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 23(b)(3). Judge Torres certified plaintiffs’ claims for both disparate impact and disparate treatment discrimination, relying on statistical evidence of discrimination in pay, promotions, and performance evaluations, as well as anecdotal evidence of Goldman’s hostile work environment. In so ruling, the court also granted plaintiffs’ motion to exclude portions of Goldman’s expert evidence as unreliable, and denied all of Goldman’s motions to exclude plaintiffs’ expert evidence.

After certification and completion of notice, Goldman attempted to remove over half of the 3,220+ class members to arbitration. Plaintiffs objected, filing for sanctions against Goldman for violations of FRCP 23(d). In 2020, the Magistrate Judge assigned to the case issued a recommendation agreeing with plaintiffs that Goldman Sachs disseminated misleading communications leading to some class members opting out of arbitration. The case proceeded toward trial on whether Goldman violated federal and NY law by engaging in gender discrimination against the Class.

On May 15, 2023, on the eve of trial, the court granted preliminary approval to a $215 million class settlement. This is an historic settlement for many reasons: It is one of the largest discrimination settlements in U.S. history; it is also the single largest gender bias settlement that has occurred in advance of employees winning their case at trial, and the third-largest gender bias settlement of any kind on record (the larger ones coming years after the employees won at trial). It is nearly five times larger than the next-largest gender bias class action settlement involving a Wall Street firm. In addition, the settlement represents approximately 78% of potential damages in the case, and 50% of all potential class damages. We are unaware of another gender class settlement before trial that had a higher recovery of potential exposure.