Two former top Goldman Sachs executives must testify in one of the biggest gender-discrimination cases in Wall Street history, a federal judge ruled.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger on Tuesday denied a move by the bank to block pre-trial depositions of former Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein and former President Gary Cohn, ruling in favor of a group of women who claim they were denied equal pay and promotions by the bank.
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Blankfein served as chairman and CEO from 2006 to 2018. Cohn was president and chief operating officer from 2006 to 2016, when he left Goldman to serve as President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser.
The suit was filed in 2010 by former employees who claimed that Goldman made biased compensation decisions and denied women opportunities they had earned. Lehrburger ruled in 2018 that the case could go forward as a class action on behalf of more than 2,000 women, increasing their leverage in the case. He then ruled in March that about 1,000 of the class members must pursue their claims in arbitration against the bank.
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