Eli Lilly to pay $2.4M to settle EEOC age bias suit

Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Co. and its Lilly USA LLC unit will pay $2.4 million to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission nationwide class age discrimination lawsuit, the agency said Wednesday.

The company said in a statement it denies the lawsuit’s allegations.

The EEOC lawsuit said the Indianapolis-based company’s Early Career hiring initiative, which was in place from 2017 to 2021, included goals designed to change hiring preferences to add more millennials to Lily’s workforce.

The company was charged with violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

The agency said the consent decree resolving the case sets up a claims process that will identify and compensate individuals aged 40 or older who applied for and were denied primary care sales representative positions in Lilly’s diabetes business unit from Jan. 1, 2017, through June 30, 2020.

The decree also requires Lilly to provide equal employment opportunity training to certain managers and human resources personnel, survey job applicants on whether they experienced discrimination, and specifically state in third-party recruiter contracts that it does not discriminate against candidates for employment based upon age.

The company issued a statement that said in part it “is pleased to have resolved this dispute. While we continue to deny the allegations in the complaint, we worked collaboratively with EEOC to resolve this matter and will continue to foster and promote a culture of diversity and respect at Lilly.”