A lawsuit filed last year charged the luxury clothing store had unfair security policies that targeted minority customers. The agreement follows a nine-month investigation by the New York Attorney General.
Barneys New York agreed to pay $525,000 to settle claims that the company targeted minority customers for surveillance, Reuters reported.
Lucas Jackson / Reuters
The New York Attorney General's office launched a nine-month investigation into the luxury store's practices following complaints by two black Barneys customers who said they were falsely accused of credit card fraud by the store last year.
The charges sparked protests and calls to boycott the 90-year-old luxury clothing company.
A lawsuit against Barneys and the NYPD, filed by 19-year-old Trayon Christian, a college student from Queens, N.Y., claimed that he was arrested by undercover police officers after buying a $350 Salvatore Ferragamo belt at Barneys in Manhattan. The officers reportedly asked Christian "how a young black man such as himself could afford to purchase such an expensive belt."
Kayla Phillips, 21, also sued the NYPD saying that after purchasing a $2,500 Céline handbag from the store, she was "attacked" by four undercover police officers who questioned her about her purchase and how she was able to afford it.
Both customers believed that Barneys store clerks fed the information to police officers.
Lucas Jackson / Reuters
Door guards identified minority customers exclusively as warranting surveillance.
In-store detectives followed minority customers, even when the customers had been identified by sales associates as clients and frequent patrons of the store.
In-store detectives disproportionately asked sales associates to reprint receipts after minority customers made purchases in order to confirm the purchases were legitimate.
In-store detectives disproportionately called sales associates who handled and completed minority customers' transactions in order to investigate the customers' credit card use.
Some sales associates avoided serving minority customers so they would not be contacted by loss-prevention employees seeking to investigate the use of credit cards by minority customers.
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