Merrill Sues to Stop E-Mail Slurs

Racist Messages: Already under fire for awarding outgoing CEO Stanley O’Neal an exit package of $161.5 million—making one of the top 10 “most egregious severance packages so far this century,” Merrill Lynch & Co. finds itself embroiled in more strife. The financial services company says it is suing a man known as “John Doe” who, while posing as a company manager, sent racist e-mails to some of Merrill’s black investment advisors, according to the New York Sun newspaper. The e-mail messages reportedly contained racial slurs. Also receiving the alleged e-mails is the Rev. Al Sharpton. Merrill Lynch has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against the sender for “impersonating an existing Merrill Lynch regional administrative manager by using a Hotmail e-mail address and signing the e-mails with the manager’s name,” which was withheld. As part of the lawsuit, Merrill Lynch is subpoenaing the sender’s Internet service provider and Microsoft Corp.

It has been a rough couple of weeks for Merrill Lynch, which is being sued by a group of investors that alleges the company falsely reported its business and financial results, resulting in its shares being traded at artificially high prices. That lawsuit led to the October 30 resignation of O’Neal, who is named along with two other Merrill Lynch executives in the investors’ lawsuit.