Merrill Lynch defeats bid by black financial advisers to sue as group

Merrill Lynch & Co., the Bank of America Corp. securities brokerage unit, won a U.S. judge's ruling denying a bid by 17 black financial advisers for group status in their five-year-old discrimination case. Broker George McReynolds of Nashville, Tennessee, sued in 2005, alleging Merrill Lynch's practices and procedure favored white financial advisers over their black counterparts, impairing their ability to make comparable incomes. U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman in Chicago on Aug. 5 rejected the bid by McReynolds and 16 other advisers who later joined the case, for certification as a class action -- or group -- lawsuit. “Plaintiffs' statistical evidence alone is insufficient to establish company-wide discrimination” affecting each member of the proposed class the same way, the judge said. Each individual group member's claim must be tried to a jury, said Gettleman. The McReynolds plaintiffs sought that status for approximately 700 advisers and trainees who had worked in the firm's retail Global Private Client unit from January 2001 until now, according the court's 18-page decision. Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, the largest U.S. bank by assets, acquired New York-based Merrill Lynch last year for about $33 billion in stock. “We're pleased with the court's ruling,” Bank of America spokesman William Halldin said in a telephone interview. He declined to comment further. Plaintiffs' lawyer Linda Friedman, a partner in the Chicago law firm Stowell & Friedman Ltd., did not immediately reply to a telephone message seeking comment. The case is McReynolds v. Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Inc., 05cv6583, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago).