Employers paid U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission $528 million through pre-litigation mediation, conciliation and settlements in 2025 — the highest number yet for pre-litigation recovery in the agency’s history. The Monday announcement followed the dual release of the agency’s FY 2025 report and FY 2027 performance plan on April 3.
The agency broke down the pre-litigation settlements further, noting $52.5 million collected for workers through conciliation in 2025 — a 24% uptick year over year. Likewise, EEOC obtained $55 million for workers through investigations in 2025 — a 115% increase in monetary benefits year over year.
Overall, employers paid $660 million to 17,680 people who faced alleged employment discrimination, the agency said.
What may be behind pre-litigation settlements
“Pre-litigation sounds better than it is,” Deb Muller, founder and CEO of employee relations case management software company, HR Acuity, told HR Dive in a statement. “When I see $528 million recovered before a single lawsuit was filed, I don’t read that as employers cooperating more. I read it as employers who couldn’t build a defense.”
One aspect of the story that gets glossed over, Muller said, is that, “Sometimes settling makes good business sense even when you have a strong case.”
“Those were organizations that simply couldn’t show their work. These situations rarely come from nowhere. There were patterns, early complaints, warning signs that never got connected,” Muller added, emphasizing the importance of proper documentation.
Culture wars will be a hallmark of this EEOC
Notably, EEOC’s previous fiscal year started off “sluggish,” Seyfarth Shaw attorneys said at the time, predicting that FY 2025 would be a year of strong enforcement due to EEOC’s budgetary increase. In its April 6 announcement, however,the agency attributed its unprecedented monetary recovery to leadership under the second Trump administration.
“These record-breaking recoveries are the result of an Administration committed to upholding our nation’s civil rights laws through colorblind, merit-based, and evenhanded enforcement,” EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas said in a statement. “This EEOC is proud to deliver on that commitment and will continue to fight discrimination wherever it occurs.”
The cultural element of compliance has been a focus of EEOC since Trump retook office. Last November, Lucas stated the agency would be dogged in protecting American workers from national origin bias. EEOC also updated its landing page on national origin bias.
Attorneys in February told HR Dive they foresaw EEOC spotlighting claims of “reverse bias” in 2026 — a prediction that may have been spurred by Lucas soliciting “reverse discrimination” charges from White men via X last December.
Former EEOC Commissioner and EEO Leaders President Chai Feldblum noted both the hard work of EEOC staff and her displeasure with the direction of EEOC in an April 6 statement provided to HR Dive. “EEOC leadership is using the agency as a partisan tool, undermining public trust and distracting from the problems workers face every day,” Feldblum said.
Similarly, former EEOC General Counsel Kara Gilbride, another member of EEO Leaders, said in a statement that “EEOC’s career employees should be allowed to continue their important work of investigating charges and litigating cases, not pressured to pursue agency leadership’s partisan agenda by searching for the rare white employee who was offended by a diversity training.”