BuzzFeed has requested a courtroom to dam arbitration claims from about 90 present and former workers who stated they have been shortchanged within the firm’s public providing, arguing that the accusations must be taken earlier than a courtroom as a substitute.
In a grievance filed Thursday within the Delaware Court docket of Chancery, BuzzFeed and its prime executives stated that the workers’ dispute was with the general public firm, and that the claims needed to be made in a courtroom. The workers have argued that they’re coated by the employment contract issued by BuzzFeed earlier than it went public. That contract says such disputes must be settled in arbitration as a substitute.
In arbitration, which is personal and determined by an arbitrator agreed on by each events, choices are often binding. Circumstances in courtroom, determined by a choose, provide extra avenues for interesting a verdict.
Final 12 months, BuzzFeed turned one of many first digital media firms to go public. The workers stated of their mass arbitration claims, filed in March, that due to administrative errors they have been prevented from buying and selling their shares on the primary day of buying and selling on Dec. 6, after which the inventory worth shortly dropped.
The workers stated that they had filed with the American Arbitration Affiliation due to a clause within the BuzzFeed employment contract diverting sure disputes away from the courtroom system. Firms typically use the personal arbitration course of to stop class-action lawsuits.
In its grievance, BuzzFeed requested the courtroom to rule that the corporate didn’t have to have interaction with the arbitration claims and to challenge an injunction barring the workers from continuing.
The corporate stated stockholder claims had nothing to do with the employees’ employment with the personal BuzzFeed, stating that the problems with buying and selling shares have been “one thing all Class B holders confronted on the time the transaction closed, a lot of whom have been by no means workers.”
Yonaton Aronoff, a lawyer representing 42 of the workers, stated BuzzFeed was doing “the whole lot it might to keep away from duty for what transpired” throughout its public debut.
“Regardless of forcing its former workers to comply with adhesive arbitration provisions as a situation to their employment,” Mr. Aronoff stated, “BuzzFeed first sought to keep away from paying its fair proportion of the arbitration charges, and now seeks to keep away from the arbitration altogether.”
