Kleiner Perkins offered Ellen Pao $1M to settle her sexual discrimination case before trial

The venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers revealed in a legal filing Wednesday that it offered Ellen Pao a cool million to settle her sexual discrimination against the firm before the case went to trial in February.

VentureBeat heard the same thing from a well-placed source in March, but was unable to confirm the settlement offer.

The settlement offer was floated around November 4, 2014, more than three months before the start of the trial. Kleiner offered a sum of $964,502 in exchange for Pao dropping her claims and agreeing not to refile them in the future. Under the terms of the agreement, both sides would cover their own legal fees.

Pao’s attorney Alan Exelrod did not respond to the offer, Kleiner says.

Now Kleiner will go after Pao for legal fees it incurred during the trial, according to the filing.

Kleiner says it racked up $972,814 in legal costs during the month-long trial, which concluded in Kleiner’s favor in March. The sum does not include attorney fees.

The firm paid $864,680 to expert witnesses and $58,878 for deposition costs.

However, Kleiner stipulated in the filing that it might be willing to waive the legal fees if Pao agrees not to appeal.

“We believe that women in technology would be best served by having all parties focus on making progress on the issues of gender diversity outside of continued litigation,” Kleiner Perkins said in a statement.

Source: Wall Street Journal