Merrill Lynch & Co. has an African-American CEO in Stanley O’Neal yet is facing a multi-million-dollar racial discrimination lawsuit.
Representatives of the firm recently met with African-American brokers who might join a lawsuit alleging the largest brokerage house in the U.S. has failed to hire and promote blacks.
Dan Sontag, head of the global private client advisory division, and Phil Sieg, managing director of strategic leadership and business development, met Dec. 14 in New York with around 15 brokers from all over the country. The case, filed mid-November in federal court in Chicago, has striking allegations of alleged blatant racism.
The four-hour meeting involved discussion on how Merrill Lynch could improve its diversity initiative and a spokesman called the meeting “constructive.”