Report: IBM settles lawsuit with Black software salesman over $2.4M in commissions

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – IBM and a black software sales representative have settled a lawsuit alleging fraud and racial bias in the workplace, according to a Bloomberg Law report.

In the lawsuit, Jerome Beard, an IBM sales executive since 2002, claimed Big Blue illegally cut his commissions on a set of 2017 deals with HCL America by $2.4 million because of racial discrimination and fraud.

Two of Beard’s colleagues who worked on similar deals got paid in full, as reported in The Register. Both were white.

In a federal court in San Francisco in April, United States District Judge William Alsup mostly denied IBM’s motion to toss the discrimination and fraud lawsuit, putting the case on the path to a trial until IBM decided to settle this week.

“This matter was settled to the parties’ mutual satisfaction,” Matthew E. Lee of Whitfield Bryson, who represented Beard, was quoted as saying.

Terms of the settlement weren’t publicly disclosed and Lee declined to share details of the agreement. Counsel for IBM didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg Law’s request for comment.

Other lawsuits

It’s not the first time IBM has been accused of stiffing its own salespeople out of commissions.

In May, the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a dismissal granted to IBM in November 2018, as first reported in the UK’s The Register.

Plaintiff Justin Fessler’s claimed that IBM unlawfully “capped” his sale commissions after repeatedly telling him his earning potential would be uncapped. However, unlike Beard’s case, there are no charges of racial bias.

The appeals court ruled that the District Court erred when it tossed his case. It is now in the US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, for written discovery and depositions.

Separately, Big Blue is also facing a class-action lawsuit related to charges of age discrimination.

Well-known employment lawyer Shannon Liss-Riordan is currently representing about 150 former IBM employees who are claiming they lost their jobs because of age discrimination.

It includes Henry Gerrits, 67, who lives in Cary and worked for IBM for about 33 years before getting laid off in June.

Liss-Riordan has vowed that “IBM cannot escape discrimination laws.”