On Tuesday, a labor court in Berlin found Sony BMG in Germany guilty of sexual discrimination after promoting a man over a woman who was expecting a child, according to a report on Expatica.com.
At the time of the suit, the woman worked for Sony BMG, a joint venture between Japan’s Sony Music label and Germany’s Bertelsmann Music Group, which has since become Sony Music Entertainment.
The woman who reportedly brought the suit against the record label claimed that in 2005, when she and two male colleagues were up for a managerial promotion, she was denied the position and told the reason was “related to her family situation and that she should be pleased she was having a baby.”
A story on the German site 123recht.net said a regional court in Berlin awarded the woman an amount in the “lower five figures.”
The industrial court twice denied her appeal on the grounds that discrimination could not be proven, but a federal court reversed the ruling both times. Finally, the industrial court reversed their decision, deciding that the employer had failed to prove that there had been no discrimination.