The Budweiser brewer Anheuser-Busch has been accused of encouraging a "locker room" and "frat party" corporate atmosphere in a sex discrimination lawsuit filed by a former senior executive who was responsible for tailoring the company's public image.
Francine Katz, a former chief communications officer at Anheuser, has alleged that the beer company maintained gender disparities in pay, excluded women from "informal social networks" and reassigned responsibilities from female executives to use as rewards for male colleagues.
A 20-year veteran at the company, Katz quit Anheuser at the end of last year after a $46bn (£28bn) takeover by Belgium's InBev. She says she realised, from documents circulated during the deal, that her base salary and bonus were far below those of male colleagues.
The lawsuit, which was rejected as "unjustified" by Anheuser, is a potential embarrassment to the Anheuser-Busch InBev conglomerate which makes drinks ranging from Stella Artois to Bass and Bud Light. During her tenure Katz was the firm's public voice, overseeing corporate social responsibility and the recruitment of minorities. Katz was one of Anheuser's most senior female executives – her lawsuit says that in 2002, she became the first woman to serve on the company's strategy committee, a body comprising the firm's top 15-20 executives setting corporate direction. At that time, she was given a pay and bonus package of $500,000 but she says her male predecessor had received $1.25m. She said this disparity continued.
In a press statement yesterday, Katz said she tried to discuss her compensation with superiors, including former chairman August Busch III, on several occasions, but her requests were "ignored or met with hostility and misinformation".
She said she only realised the extent of the alleged gap in pay when Anheuser was taken over: "It wasn't until the company was being sold to InBev last year that I learned the truth."
Anheuser's takeover by InBev sparked dismay and controversy in St Louis, the midwestern home city of Budweiser. Critics argued that a US icon was being sold into overseas hands and there were short-lived attempts by Budweiser enthusiasts to organise a boycott and to protest against the deal.
Anheuser said in a statement that the company believed Katz was compensated fairly and treated "in compliance with all relevant laws and internal standards".
It continued: "Our company firmly believes in treating all employees fairly and values the differences of all employees, specifically prohibiting any form of discrimination based on a person's gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability or other prohibited factor."
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