Former female employees sue Google for gender bias in pay, promotions

Three former female employees of Alphabet Inc's Google filed a lawsuit on Thursday accusing the tech company of discriminating against women in pay and promotions.

The proposed class action lawsuit, filed in California state court in San Francisco, comes as Google faces an investigation by the US Department of Labor into sex bias in pay practices.

The lawsuit appears to be the first to make class action sex bias claims against Google, but is only the latest instance of a major tech company being accused of discriminating against women.

The Department of Labor sued Oracle America Inc in January, claiming it paid white men more than women and minorities with similar jobs. Microsoft Corp and Twitter Inc are facing sex bias lawsuits, and Qualcomm Inc last year settled claims for $19.5 million.

Meanwhile, Uber Technologies Inc in June said it would make a series of changes after a former engineer in a blog post accused the ride-hailing service of condoning rampant sexism.
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Court rules in favour of Google in 1.1-billion euro French tax bill case

US internet giant Google on Wednesday won a court challenge against demands by French authorities that it pay 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in back taxes.

The Paris administrative court ruled that Google Ireland was not subject to corporate and value-added taxes (VAT) for the period 2005-2010, striking down the tax administration's demands for back payments.

The ruling in favour of Google, now part of Alphabet Inc, followed a court adviser's recommendation that Google did not have a "permanent establishment" or sufficient taxable presence to justify the bill.
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