A former gross sales govt at Spotify has filed a lawsuit towards the music streaming service, alleging gender discrimination, equal pay violation and defamation. In paperwork filed in New York Supreme Court on Tuesday, Hong Perez accuses her former employer of tolerating bias towards ladies within the office, and that she was fired after being scapegoated by her then-boss, head of gross sales Brian Berner.
In the submitting, Perez claims that Berner was reprimanded earlier this yr for accepting live performance tickets at Madison Square Garden from a potential associate, in addition to different technical points associated to a discounting deal, however that he diverted the blame to her as a substitute. According to Hong, Berner then advisable her to be terminated “for his errors” and {that a} subsequent assembly with the director of inside controls turned contentious. Hong was fired two days after the assembly for violating Spotify’s code of conduct.
The criticism alleges that different senior male executives had permitted Berner’s live performance tickets and different components of the deal, however that “they weren’t investigated and never fired. Only Plaintiff — a lady — was chosen as the manager at fault for Berner’s mess.” Perez says Berner then defamed her by sending an electronic mail to “just about everybody on the gross sales workforce,” together with a whole bunch of workers and execs, alleging that her firing was as a result of she “acted in methods which might be towards our code of conduct and tips for inside compliance.”
Much of Perez’s lawsuit seeks to color Berner as having bias towards ladies normally. She says that he introduced solely male workers to networking occasions on the Sundance Film Festival in each 2016 and 2017, referring to them as “boys’ journeys.” During these jaunts, Perez says workers spoke of drug use and of there being not less than one bodily altercation involving the “boys” — however that Berner by no means sought to implement the identical code of conduct that acquired her fired.
According to Perez, Berner gave a male counterpart in gross sales the next wage enhance and bigger fairness award than her, regardless of the person having “efficiency points in his area.”
The criticism additionally cites men-only journeys to Atlantic City strip golf equipment and alleges that the corporate’s chief monetary officer as soon as instructed a big viewers of workers that he “doesn’t care about range on the firm.”
“At Spotify, we don’t tolerate harassment or discrimination of any variety at any stage,” an organization spokesperson stated when reached. “We don’t touch upon particular particulars of pending litigation.” In feedback to Variety, the corporate added that Perez’s claims are “with out benefit.”
The lawsuit arrives two months after an inside range report acknowledged that over 38 p.c of Spotify workers recognized as ladies, with the variety of feminine board members, senior execs and different leaders at round 30 p.c.
Perez is in search of damages for misplaced wages and advantages, together with punitive damages.
