- Meltwater, the second-largest PR software company, agreed to pay $14.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit.
- Former salespeople alleged Meltwater violated laws by failing to pay them for overtime work.
- Meltwater denied the claims and New York State Supreme Court did not issue a ruling.
PR tech giant Meltwater has agreed to pay employees $14.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit over overtime pay.
The complaint, filed in early 2020 in Massachusetts and later in New York State Supreme Court, alleged that Meltwater required salespeople to work overtime, prohibited them from reporting their hours, miscalculated their overtime pay by failing to include bonuses and commissions, and falsely classified them as exempt from state and federal overtime laws.
Employees were emailed a court notice of the settlement amount May 11.
That notice, reviewed by Insider, reads that employees who worked for Meltwater on various dates between 2014 and 2020 may be entitled to several thousand dollars each, depending on where and how long they worked at the company. According to New York court filings, the claims cover 40,000 work weeks and apply to at least 40 people in Illinois and Massachusetts and at least 100 people in New York and California.
"While we deny the claims, we are pleased to have reached an agreement as part of a business decision," said a Meltwater spokesperson.
The court did not issue a ruling on the case's merits. The law firms representing the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
San Francisco-based Meltwater is a software-as-a-service business that uses artificial intelligence to help brands and PR agencies like Edelman push out corporate messages and analyze discussions of their companies on media platforms.
Meltwater went public on the Euronext Growth Oslo exchange on December 3, 2020, after a planned merger with Cision fell through.
Meltwater reported $361 million in revenue for 2020. It employs 1,700 people in 50 offices.
