Merrill advisers rebuffed on bias suit

The Supreme Court has refused to revive a bid to sue Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch unit for allegedly paying 700 black financial advisers less than their white counterparts. The justices last week turned away an appeal by 17 current and former company advisers who sought to press a race discrimination class action against Merrill Lynch, which BofA bought in 2009. The plaintiffs told the Supreme Court in their appeal that Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. from 2001 to 2006 was responsible for a “large and statistically significant wage gap” between black and white advisers. The appeal said that blacks fared poorly under Merrill Lynch's policy of letting advisers work together in teams and under the company's system for distributing the accounts of retiring or departing advisers.

NOT ENOUGH IN COMMON

A federal trial judge said that the 700 advisers didn't have enough in common for the case to proceed as a single class action. An appeals court then said that the advisers couldn't appeal that ruling. Merrill Lynch contended that the case bore similarities to the WalMart Stores Inc. class action rejected by the Supreme Court in June. BofA, the biggest U.S. lender, wasn't named in the suit. The suit is one of two pressed against the company by George McReynolds, a Nashville, Tenn., broker. The same trial judge, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman in Chicago, this year threw out a second suit by him focusing on retention bonuses.