A ruling by a federal appeals court has cleared way for US's biggest sex bias case ever. On Wednesday, the court ruled that the world's largest employer Wal Mart Inc. must face a class action suit for discriminating against women in matters of pay and promotions.
At least 1.6 million current and former female employees of Wal-Mart can now sue the company as a single group.
The case was initiated by a former employee of Wal-Mart Betty Dukes, who alleged that even after years of hard work and excellent performance reviews, she was denied promotions.
Wal-Mart's argument against the class action suit was that its 3400 stores in the US operate as independent entities and it never had any policy of discriminating against women.
Wal-Mart now faces a possibility of paying up billions of dollars in damages if it loses the case.
The Wal-Mart stock has remained unaffected by the news and closed at 48.58$ on Tuesday as well as Wednesday.
