Pharmaceutical giant Novartis reached an agreement this week to compensate over 7,000 sales representatives seeking overtime pay.
Under the terms of the settlement, which is subject to court approval, the company will pay $99 million to set things right.
The issue of whether pharma sales reps are exempt from overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. The companies argue they should be exempt because they work independently under incentive pay arrangements.
Evidently Novartis decided not to wait for that question to be resolved, and wanted to get it case over with and put the matter behind it as quickly as possible.
By: Joe Lustig
This article was syndicated via RSS from: http://joelustig.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/novartis-sales-rep-to-share-in-99-million-settlement-of-overtime-claims/
