A NEW YORK jeweler has sued American Express Travel Related Services, claiming Amex is excluding from its catalogs items from vendors owned by Hasidic Jews.
According to court papers, York Gem, an Amex vendor since 1993, had been giving promotional money to Amex, most recently $150,000 for its 1997 Christmas catalog. In return, it was to receive a higher percentage of the revenue from sales of its jewelry and to have the successful items appear in future books.
But the company claims Amex did not fully deliver on its promises and stopped carrying York Gem’s products after Ralph Pinto became VP/general manager of merchandise last year. Pinto, the suit claims, sought a bribe from York Gem officials, who refused.
The complaint, filed June 26 in New York State Supreme Court, says Pinto, who is also named as a defendant, “systematically excluded, boycotted and refused to do business with all Hasidic Jews on Amex’s behalf,” dropping several other Hasidic-owned Amex vendors. “They threw out everybody who was Hasidic,” York Gem attorney David Jaroslawicz said in an interview.
Amex spokeswoman Gail Wasserman said, “We’re in the process of reviewing the complaint. We believe it to have no merit.” She declined to comment further.
Pinto was unavailable for comment.
The suit, which seeks $125 million in damages, claims that in a March 1997 meeting, Pinto sought a bribe to keep York Gem on as a vendor. It also claims that Amex hired other companies to make products similar to York Gem’s.
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