Former Anheuser-Busch PR head loses discrimination suit
Anheuser-Busch did not discriminate against their former executive Francine Katz even though they paid her significantly less than a male predecessor, a jury in St. Louis decided on 16 May 2014.
After the high-profile three-week trial, the jury deliberated for more than ten hours over two days before siding with Anheuser-Busch, the company now owned by AB-InBev.
Read this and cry: including bonuses and stock options, Ms Katz earned about USD 1 million annually after her 2002 promotion to Vice President of communications and consumer affairs and her appointment to the company’s influential strategy committee.
Ms Katz filed a suit against Anheuser-Busch in 2009, after she had left the brewer following its sale to InBev. Her attorney said she was entitled to at least USD 9.4 million in back pay from 2002 to 2008, plus another nearly USD 5 million in interest and an unspecified amount of punitive damages, it was reported.
In 2008, her final year with the company, Katz declared more than USD 14 million in income on her federal tax returns, including stock options she cashed in.
Her salary may appear a lot if compared with the brewer’s shop-floor pay. But as Ms Katz argued her case, her basic salary was only half of that of John Jacob, whose job she took over. Mr Jacob made USD 4.5 million a year.
Media say that at trial, Ms Katz submitted evidence showing that her job duties extended well beyond public relations. Ms Katz also argued that she was the victim of a “boys-club mentality” that saw her excluded from corporate flights, male-only company golf outings and other social opportunities.
In its defence, the brewer argued that Ms Katz’s salary, benefits and bonuses compared favourably to those in similar positions at other large U.S. corporations and that the process which had determined her salary had been gender neutral.
Moreover, the brewer said that Mr Jacob, a civil rights icon, had considerably more responsibilities, including an informal role as the most trusted adviser to former CEO August Busch III.
In a video testimony, Mr Jacob said if he had seen discrimination he would have spoken up, especially since he considered himself a close friend and mentor of Ms Katz.
At Ms Katz’s trial, both August Busch III and his son August Busch IV, who was CEO at the time of the InBev purchase, testified, providing a rare public window into the corporate culture of Anheuser-Busch.
In her two-decade career, Ms Katz, now 56, rose from a corporate lawyer to a role as key strategist and the company’s top female executive. She was often the face of her hometown employer, defending Anheuser-Busch from state and federal regulators and anti-alcohol campaigns.
After the verdict was announced, Ms Katz said she was disappointed with the outcome but pleased to have had a public forum to air her grievance.
