Morgan Stanley, the world’s second-biggest securities firm, has set up a $46 million claims pool to settle a sex-discrimination lawsuit in which three of the eight plaintiffs are Colorado women.
The company also said Wednesday that it will enact new policies to help women succeed as financial advisers.
Nancy Reeves of Colorado Springs, Debra Shaw of Hayden and Jan Tyler of Denver are all parties to the suit, according to an amended complaint.
The settlement, which must be approved by the U.S. District Court in Washington, would change training and management-development programs in Morgan Stanley’s wealth- management division, the New York-based firm said in a statement.
Tyler, 56, was fired in 2005, four months after she filed a gender- and age-discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She is now an independent securities adviser.
Tyler and the other former financial advisers claimed Morgan Stanley discriminated against them and more than 3,000 current and former advisers since August 2003. Morgan Stanley paid women less than men and gave them fewer promotion opportunities, the women claimed.
As part of the settlement, Morgan Stanley also will spend $7.5 million on new diversity programs for female employees.
“We are firmly committed to the initiatives we will be undertaking to attract and retain women financial advisers and help them be as successful as possible,” Caroline Gundeck, head of the Morgan Stanley wealth- management unit’s office of diversity, said in the statement.
The agreement will also increase earnings for female advisers by at least $16 million over five years, according to a statement by the law firms representing the plaintiffs.
The settlement is the ninth- largest in a U.S. gender-bias class-action case.
The biggest, for $565 million including interest, was a 2000 settlement of a case brought against the U.S. Information Agency and the Voice of America by 1,100 employees of the agency.
Tyler, who said she is prohibited from speaking about Morgan Stanley and her settlement, said reforms at other companies have failed to produce tangible improvements for female brokers.
“There have been many settlements over the years,” she said. “They haven’t had an impact on anything.”
However, Tyler didn’t discourage women from entering the industry.
This month, Tyler launched a website, wrongedway.com, to “shed light on stories of women working on Wall Street.”
Bloomberg News contributed to this report.
Staff writer Kimberly S. Johnson can be reached at 303-954-1088 or kjohnson@denverpost.com.
