"We are in the process of amending the complaint against Sanofi-Aventis," says lawyer David Sanford. "It will include many additional representative from around the country—women who have similar claims." There are two general and common claims--primarily women are paid less and promoted less quickly. In addition, there are other components such as pregnancy issues, retaliation and sexual harassment.
"We have spoken with a great deal of people and we are currently in the process of choosing class representatives who have strong claims and are typical to the class in general and common," says Sanford.
The Sanofi-Aventis case most likely stemmed from the similar Novartis discrimination case. The Novartis case was litigated since 2004 and is currently pending in New York. "The judge issued an order certifying the class that now affects women nationwide—there are about 5,500 women in the class instead of 19, mainly due to a lot of publicity," adds Sanford. Many individuals who worked at Sanofi contacted Sanford's firm over a year ago with the same issues seen at Novartis."We filed a charge with the EOC, then we filed a complaint with the federal court in NY and more women contacted us. Right now, four women from Sanofi have brought the action but we are going to include many more," says Sanford.
"We anticipate filing the amended complaint no later than the end of November. It means there are additional women nationwide who are supporting the idea that there is a discrimination problem at Sanofi-Aventis. If you have many individuals, that infers that there is a deeper, systemic problem at Sanofi relating to gender discrimination and the way that inference is supported is by statistical evidence. When we get into discovery, evidence will either support the claims of gender discrimination or it won't. We will know a lot more about our case and its strength once we are able to analyze the statistical information given to us by the defendant—a process that will take a few months with the experts we hire.
Once that is completed, we will be in a much better position to discuss the claims of gender discrimination and whether they are supported by statistical evidence."
