$85M

Cisco: $85M in Penalties Since 2000

According to Good Jobs First's Violation Tracker, Cisco Systems and companies currently under its ownership have accumulated approximately $85M in penalties across 8 cases since 2000.

Here's the breakdown:

Government contracting: $48M

2010: $48M - False Claims Act case involving Cisco Systems and Westcon Group North America (DOJ)

Financial offenses: $20M

2006: $20M - Accounting fraud or deficiencies involving Scientific-Atlanta (SEC)

Employment-related: $11.4M

2009: $6.7M - Wage and hour violation (private state lawsuit)
2017: $2.7M - Employment discrimination involving Splunk (U.S. Department of Labor, OFCCP)
2020: $2M - Employment discrimination involving Cisco Systems (U.S. Department of Labor, OFCCP)

Consumer protection: $6M

2019: $6M - Privacy violation (multiple government agencies)

Workplace safety: $10K

2010: $5K - OSHA workplace safety violation
2024: $5K - OSHA workplace safety violation

A few observations:

Roughly 56% of the total comes from a single $48M government contracting case.
The $11.4M in employment-related penalties is particularly relevant to Cisco employees, especially given ongoing discussions about layoffs, compensation, and management practices.
Two employment discrimination cases resulted in $4.7M in combined penalties.
Some cases involve subsidiaries or acquired companies, including Scientific-Atlanta and Splunk, and may predate Cisco's ownership.
These records span nearly two decades and don't necessarily reflect current practices.
The database includes private lawsuit settlements as well as government enforcement actions, so not every amount represents a government fine.

What interests me most are the $6.7M wage and hour case and the two employment discrimination cases totaling $4.7M. Did these settlements lead to meaningful changes in how Cisco treats its employees?

Source: Good Jobs First, Violation Tracker (2026)

https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/

#Ethics #Compliance #Lawsuit #EmployeeRights #Regulations

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2 replies (most recent on top)

@op

What interests me most are the $6.7M wage and hour case and the two employment discrimination cases totaling $4.7M.
For the $6.7M class judgement, Technical Writers are hourly employees now, instead of exempt like they were at the time.

For the $2M class judgement, I'm guessing the pay fairness reviews that happen from time to time are a result of this, but I don't know that for a fact. This would, however, address the claims made by the class.

No clue about the $2.7M judgement against Splunk, since it's from the early 2010s.

so avg $3M/year for a company that ended up with $14B in cash last year (not revenue...operating cash flow), which is 0.02% of that cash. Do you understand that all companies carve out a budget for lawsuits? It's strictly a question of whether or not it exceeded that budget vs the cost of making the change(s) across the company. It's always a business decision.

It's the same reason pharmaceutical companies continue to rack up massive fines year after year - because the profits vastly outweigh the penalties.

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