McDonald’s will go to court next year against media mogul Byron Allen for Allen’s $10 billion racial discrimination lawsuit, as ruled by a federal judge in Los Angeles.
The comedian and media mogul sued McDonald’s over a year ago, claiming that the company chose not to advertise with black-owned media outlets including his AMG Entertainment Studios and Weather Group.
According to the complaint, McDonald’s gives less than $5 million of its $1.6 billion annual television ad budget to black-owned media despite the fact that black consumers make up 40% of company sales in the United States.
In December, US District Judge Fernando Olguin threw out Allen’s case, but he resubmitted it shortly afterward. Last week, the judge once again denied McDonald’s motion to dismiss.
The court’s latest ruling “has nothing whatsoever to do with the merits of the case, but simply allows Mr. Allen to continue to try, as he has for more than a year now, to substantiate his speculative and conclusory claims,” legal counsel Loretta Lynch stated. “We believe the evidence will show that there was no discrimination and that Entertainment Studios’ claims are meritless.”
More than 50 black-owned McDonald’s franchisees sued the company in 2020 for relegating them to poor neighborhoods, an accusation that McDonald’s has denied. Last year, the complaint was dismissed; however, shareholders have recently voted to hire a third-party firm that will investigate whether or not McDonald’s has committed civil rights violations.
“This is about economic inclusion of African American-owned businesses in the US economy,” Allen said. “McDonald’s takes billions from African American consumers and gives almost nothing back.”
