Stefan Mileschin

old to write an $11.1 million cheque

A federal jury found that former IBM sales manager Scott Kingston had been unlawfully fired by the company and denied sales commission after challenging the treatment of subordinates as racially biased.

The jury told IBM to pay Kingston $11.1 million. The case dates to 2017, when two IBM salespeople within months of each other closed similarly large software sales deals that led to vastly different commission payments. Nick Donato, who was White, received more than a million dollars for a SAS Institute deal, while Jerome Beard, who is Black, was paid about $230,000 for closing a sale to HCL Technologies.

Beard was paid about 15 percent of what he should have received under his agreement with IBM, despite a company policy not to cap sales commissions.

Kingston managed the two salespeople through two lower-level managers, raised his concerns about racial discrimination with his superiors toward the end of 2017.

He said of his conversation with his managers: "They were telling me it wasn't about money; it was some other reason. I flat out said, 'You are leaving no possibility for anybody to conclude another reason than racial discrimination. You are foreclosing any other possible conclusion. You are going to get us sued.'"

https://fudzilla.com/news/52713-ibm-...biased-sacking