Okay, this is definitely not a BHM moment: MediaPost reported Byron Allen lost his $100 million lawsuit against Mickey D’s.
Allen’s separate $10 billion lawsuit against the Golden Arches is still pending, so the latest dismissal might just be a McBump in the road. Plus, it’s a safe bet that Allen will appeal the ruling.
But it sure feels like bad timing to announce the news during Black History Month—and don’t expect any mention of the event at Black & Positively Golden®.
Byron Allen Loses $100M Lawsuit Against McDonald's
By Tanya Gazdik
Suing giant corporations can be fraught.
While the companies have deep pockets for potential judgments, they also can use those same resources to “lawyer up” to the umpteenth degree.
Case in point: Byron Allen and the Allen Media Group (which includes Entertainment Studios Networks and The Weather Channel) has lost a $100 million fraud lawsuit against McDonald’s.
The lawsuit accused the fast food giant of not following through on a pledge to dramatically increase national ad spending with Black-owned media outlets.
“Facing discrimination claims, the home of the Big Mac in May 2021 unveiled a self-described four-year plan to pump up its national media spending with said Black-owned companies from 2% to 5%,” according to Deadline.
The suit hinged on a specific interpretation of claims McDonald’s made in a press release outlining its pledges to increase its spending with Black-owned businesses overall, according to Variety.
McDonald’s argued that the lawsuit violated California’s “anti-SLAPP” statute, a 20-year-old regulation that allows defendants to ask a judge to dismiss a case that lacks merit and is tied to free speech, according to Restaurant Business.
The California state court judge dismissed the case, “finding that McDonald’s will likely win the case if it’s allowed to proceed, since the company still has more time to live up to its vow,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Allen, the publicized bidder for Paramount Global, is not without “deep pockets” himself.
Louis Miller, a lawyer representing Allen Media Group, said the ruling will be appealed. He said that California law bars “companies from making false statements to the public.”
It’s not the only lawsuit the Allen Media Group has initiated.
“Allen Media Group has a separate $10 billion lawsuit pending against McDonald’s in federal court, alleging that it discriminates through racial stereotyping in its advertising practices, violating civil rights laws,” according to Variety.
McDonald’s issued a triumphant statement after the court win, per Deadline. The company’s interpretation of the judgment is that McDonald’s will be unable to appeal.
“The court’s decision serves as confirmation of what we’ve said all along: this was just another frivolous lawsuit brought by Byron Allen as part of his smear campaign against McDonald’s,” according to a statement by the company.
“The court dealt Mr. Allen a crushing blow by dismissing this case for good, ruling that he failed to show that his claims had even ‘minimal merit,’ and the loss requires Mr. Allen to pay McDonald’s legal fees,” per the statement. “McDonald’s long ago made clear that we would not allow Mr. Allen to perpetuate false narratives at our expense or succumb to his extortionist tactics. Moving forward, we will continue to collaborate with diverse-owned partners and remain committed to advancing inclusion and diversity efforts.”
Allen has made similar claims against General Motors over its media spending practices, but has not filed any legal action.
“Meanwhile, one major company has garnered Allen’s praise,” according to MediaPost. The Allen Media Group and Verizon partnered to host a Black-owned media summit.
1 comment:
I hope Byron Allen keeps pushing, because it's causing McDonald's to footnote a lot of their diversity claims. But they still have far to go.
For instance, McDonald's claims, "Of the amount spent by McDonald’s and our U.S. Franchisees throughout our U.S. supply chain in 2020, an industry-leading 24% was with diverse-owned suppliers – businesses 51% owned, managed and controlled by WOMEN AND/OR Black, Hispanic, Asian, Indigenous, veteran, LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities. We set a commitment to boost this to 25% by the end of 2025, which we have achieved in 2021 and 2022 ahead of the 2025 goal.”
But if you look closely, they allowed for an enormous loophole. They themselves state, buried in the fine print:
"Our diverse-owned diversity spend figures in the U.S. includes both self-certified and formal industry-recognized certification and Tier 1 and Tier 2 spend.”
Translation? Existing white male vendors simply had their wives or sisters or women employees claim to be the owners and self-certified. There's no system of checks or balances, anyone can claim to be diverse and McDonald's lets it slide. It's white women who bumped up the spending numbers.
Another loophole? Media spend. McDonald's claims, "Additionally, since 2021, our U.S. Marketing Department has been working to advance investments in, and partnerships with, diverse-owned production and media companies and content creators to enable deeper, more inclusive storytelling."
Ditto, they allowed existing vendors owned by white men to self-certify and claim to be owned by white women. That's how they're "advancing investments with diverse-owned companies." It's, again, white women bumping up the spending numbers.
And see the phrase "content creators" they slid in there? They've bypassed Black-owned media almost entirely, are feeding small jobs to individual Black, Asian and Latino social media influencers, and hoping nobody notices that 1% of their spend is going to them, and 99% to white women. They lump them all together and get away with it. At least until someone lets Byron Allen know what's going on behind the scenes.
Post a Comment