CVC and Lee to seek settlement in private mediation

Lisa Lee and CVC Capital Partners are engaging in settlement discussions outside court, according to a April 25 court filing with the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York.

In January, Lee sued CVC for alleged gender discrimination and sexual harassment, among other claims. In March, Private Equity International reported that CVC rejected each and all of Lee’s claims in a court response.

This April filing said the plaintiff and the defendant have retained a mediator and are in the process of scheduling a private mediation and that a settlement conference in court would not be productive at the moment.

In a separate filing from 2 May, the parties wrote that they expect this mediation to take place in either June or July of this year.

The 25 April filing also indicated that, on 6 April, CVC served Lisa Lee with its first set of written discovery requests for any material serving as proof of claims and defences in the lawsuit. The following day, Lee served CVC with her first set of written discovery requests, the document said.

While Lee is seeking compensation for emotional distress damages, liquidated damages and punitive damages, and interest, costs and attorneys’ fees, CVC doesn’t have enough information to calculate such damages, the document said. However, CVC wrote in the filing that the only damages it is aware of are about four months’ worth of lost salary of $120,000 resulting from Lee’s commencement of employment at “a competing company” within four months of her departure from CVC.

In the 2 May document outlining the case management plan, a deadline of 31 October has been set for all fact discovery and 15 January for motions for summary judgement, if at all. It also indicated that this case will be tried by a jury for an estimated length of eight days. The court is expected to hold a status conference on this case on 29 September, the filing said.

Lee’s lawyers and CVC could not be reached for comment.