On July 17, 2020, Bottini & Bottini filed a shareholder derivative lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California against Qualcomm's Board of Directors and its CEO, Steven Mollenkopf. Qualcomm has zero African Americans on its Board of Directors and zero African Americans among its senior executives. Qualcomm's workforce is also only comprised of 1.5% of African Americans. In stark contrast to this lack of diversity, Qualcomm has repeatedly professed that it has strong policies and internal controls in place to ensure diversity at the company. Qualcomm's Governance Principles state that the Board insists that search firms looking for nominees to the Qualcomm Board of Directors include racially and ethnically diverse persons in the pool of candidates. Yet despite including racially and ethnically diverse candidates in its pool, no racially or ethnically diverse person has been nominated to Qualcomm's Board in the last six years.
The lawsuit against Qualcomm includes claims against the Board members and Mollenkopf for lying to shareholders in the Company's annual Proxy Statements and for breaching their fiduciary duties. The complaint seeks the following relief:
(1) Qualcomm should fire its Chief Diversity Officer and replace her with an African American;
(2) Qualcomm should replace three of its directors with two African Americans and one other minority;
(3) Qualcomm should create a $800 million fund to hire Blacks and minorities and promote them to management positions at the company
(4) Qualcomm should publish an annual Diversity Report with median pay data and should require annual training of its Board regarding diversity and anti-discrimination topics
(5) Qualcomm should replace PWC as its auditor