Los Angeles, CA: Approximately 9,000 women who work or worked at KPMG between October 2008 and the present should begin receiving in their mailboxes a Court-ordered notice that details their opportunity to participate in a collective action challenging pay discrimination at KPMG.
The Court-ordered Notice was mailed on October 3, 2014. After receiving the Notice, these 9,000 current and former KPMG employees will have the opportunity to submit a Consent to Join form between now and January 31, 2015 in order to join together in this suit that seeks to recover the compensation they should have been paid. KPMG, a Big Four accounting firm, boasted global revenue of more than $23 billion in 2013.
This notice was mailed after the Plaintiffs in Kassman, et al. v. KPMG, Civ. 1:11?cv?03743 (S.D.N.Y.) secured a hard-fought win to get the Notice approved. U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield granted conditional collective action certification after reviewing voluminous briefing from the parties, including the vigorous opposition of KPMG. In issuing the ruling in favor of Plaintiffs, Judge Schofield noted that "Plaintiffs' preliminary expert analysis shows that nationwide pay disparities at KPMG attributable to gender are statistically significant at more than eleven standard deviations, meaning that the probability that KPMG's compensation could be gender neutral is less than one in one hundred million." Judge Schofield ultimately concluded that Plaintiffs submitted evidence at this early stage sufficient to suggest that female professionals at KPMG were paid less than their male counterparts for the same work and that the female employees at KPMG might be, together with the class representatives in the case, "victims of a common policy or plan that violated the law."
This Notice is being mailed to former and current female employees who worked in a Client Service Delivery Role as an Associate, Manager, Senior Manager, Director or Managing Director role in KPMG's Advisory or Tax functions from October 17, 2008 to the present. The case is not limited to any particular role, division or geography because, as the Court noted, KPMG's "compensation policies are set at high levels and applied across job titles, function groups and geographic locations."
In addition to challenging unequal, centralized pay decisions in their suit, the Plaintiffs also challenge other discriminatory employment decisions, including discrimination in promotions, work assignments, and discrimination against pregnant women and mothers. The Plaintiffs plan to seek class certification of these systemic gender discrimination claims from Judge Schofield later in the case.
The Plaintiffs and the class are represented by Katherine Kimpel, Kate Mueting, Katherine Lamm, and Maya Sequeira, of Sanford Heisler, LLP.
Any woman who wants to join the lawsuit must return her Consent to Join Form before January 31, 2015.
