A group of “concerned” Coca-Cola shareholders have sent a letter to the soda giant, complaining about their woke policy when it comes to their legal representation and the conditions they have placed on them that are illegal.
Coke is now requiring law firms to give 30% of their billable hours to minorities of which at least 50% of which go to Black attorneys.
The American Civil Rights Project (ACRP) demands that Coke either reverse the policy they set in January or that they turn over to provide access to the corporate records related to the decision of Coca-Cola’s officers and directors, and how they adopted illegal practices that could result in lawsuits that could cost the shareholders money.
The letter continues:
The Policies additionally expose the company to potential litigation on other theories, including (without waiving the right to later note more):
(a)the Policies order outside counsel to discriminate based on race, ethnicity, sex, gender, and disability status in hiring, promotional decisions, firing, staffing, and internal compensation structures. In doing so, the Policies order outside counsel to violate Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
(b)in requiring the disclosure of individual outside-counsel “team member’s” disability status, the Policies separately compel the violation of the confidentiality provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In April, famed attorney Boyden Gray wrote an open letter to the company outlining how the new policy was discriminatory. So at this point if not before Coke had to know their policy was illegal.
Yet, as Daniel Morenoff, leader of the ACRP wrote in the letter to Coca-Cola, on the same day Gray wrote his letter, the company:
[Coke] executed and filed with the SEC a Form 10Q omitting any reference whatsoever to the [illegal contracting] policies or Coke’s related liabilities. Given the total omission of these material liabilities, that document, by all appearances, did not “contain[ ]” or “fairly present[ ], in all material respects, the financial condition…. of the Company.” Thus, [Coke] executed and submitted to the SEC a false “Certification Pursuant to 18 USC Section 1350, as Adopted Pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
