A cadre of about 20 black college students marched outside the Merrill Lynch office in Chicago, as talks to settle a class action charging the investment firm with mistreatment of its African-American brokers broke down, according to Investment News. Since the suit was filed in December, Merrill Lynch has participated in at least six negotiations to rectify what the brokers claim is “systemic and pervasive race discrimination and retaliation against African Americans,” including unequal pay and unequal opportunities. Merrill Lynch had established an Office of Diversity to handle such matters, but Linda Friedman of the Chicago law firm Stowell & Friedman, representing the plaintiffs, told IN that her clients “question the sincerity” of Merrill Lynch leadership as it ignores “the needed external supervision and audit terms brought to the negotiating table by the African American financial advisers.” Robert McCann, ML’s Global Private Client president, said in a statement that he was “saddened and disappointed” by the impasse in talks, and acknowledged that while the firm’s has not had a “perfect history” in this matter, it has been “working hard to make real and lasting change.”
