(New York) A California judge dismissed a lawsuit initiated by a top media executive accusing McDonald’s of discriminating against black-run businesses in its advertising spending. The lawsuit claimed $ 10 billion in damages.
The civil lawsuit, filed in May, accused the fast food giant of deliberately refusing to buy advertising from chains owned by Byron Allen. The latter campaigned for large groups to buy more advertisements in African-American media, through his companies Entertainment Studios Networks and Weather Group.
In his judgment, Judge Fernando Olguin believes that the two companies have not sufficiently substantiated their claims.
He argues in particular that they did not present enough facts to prove that they had tried to get a contract with McDonald’s and to prove that McDonald’s had intentionally discriminated against them on a racial basis.
The judge, however, leaves the door open by offering complainants the opportunity to file a revised complaint by December 20.
According to the initial lawsuit, the fast food chain spent around $ 1.6 billion on TV ads in the United States in 2019, but only 0.31% of that went to black-controlled media, even then. that African Americans make up about 40% of the group’s customers.
A lawyer for the two companies, Skip Miller, told AFP they intended to add “detailed facts” to their case and file an amended complaint.
“This case is a question of turnover, not of race, and was rejected, because the plaintiffs did not bring any facts to support their accusations”, reacted a lawyer of McDonald’s, Loretta Lynch, in a message transmitted to AFP. If a new complaint is filed, the group will continue to challenge it, because it believes “there is no evidence to justify this unfounded cause”, she added.
Just before the lawsuit was filed in May, the group said it wanted to double its advertising spending over the next four years in media owned by representatives of black and Hispanic minorities, women and other sub-groups. represented.
Over this period, spending on African-American media will drop from 2% to 5% of the national total, McDonald’s said at the time.