A lawyer for Goldman Sachs urged a U.S. appeals court Wednesday to send a former employee's gender discrimination dispute to arbitration rather than allow her to proceed with a proposed class action.
The case is being watched closely because it could help other employers avoid discrimination class actions like the one filed by Lisa Parisi, a former Goldman Sachs managing director.
Robert Giuffra, a lawyer for Goldman Sachs, told a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York that a lower court was incorrect in deciding last year not to send Parisi's case to arbitration.
"When she signed the agreement and became one of the more highly paid people at Goldman, she agreed to arbitration as the forum," Giuffra said.
But Paul Bland, a lawyer for Parisi, argued that arbitration clauses can't prohibit employees from bringing class actions alleging a pattern or practice of discrimination at a company under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
This article is only available in full to Compliance Complete
North America Subscribers who are logged in.
Please log in to see if you can view this content.
