Divine dress
BARBARA EISENBERG
Executive vice president, general counsel and secretary, Ann Taylor Stores
Corp. Age 64
FASHIONABLE BUSINESS
New York-based Ann Taylor Stores Corp. sells upscale
women’s apparel in 622 AnnTaylor and Ann Taylor Loft
stores, 26 factory outlets and online. Nearly all clothing
and accessories are designed in-house, with production outsourced to manufacturers in 24 countries,
predominately in Asia. The company has about 13,000
nonunion employees, including 8,200 part-time workers. It posted $1.58 billion in 2003 sales.
HUMAN RIGHTS
In recent years, human rights activists have criticized
U.S. clothing retailers for buying their merchandise from
foreign sweatshops, thus perpetuating garment workers’ low wages and poor working conditions. AnnTaylor
and other leading clothiers have been targeted by anti-sweatshop shareholder resolutions, boycott threats and
scattered union demonstrations. The animus against
AnnTaylor on this issue is unfounded, said General
Counsel Barbara K. Eisenberg, citing her company’s
long-standing concern for workers in its own stores and
in suppliers’ factories. During her tenure, the company
has deepened this commitment, said Eisenberg.
In February 2002, AnnTaylor announced the adop-
tion of new “global supplier principles” to prevent
employment discrimination and unfair anti-union prac-
tices among its manufacturing partners. The company
has hired a full-time director of human rights compli-
ance, reporting directly to Eisenberg, and has retained
an outside firm to monitor manufacturers’ treatment of
workers. “This is not a new issue for AnnTaylor,” said
Eisenberg. “We have always believed that our clients
look to us for beautiful clothes that are made in a way
[that] they could be proud to wear them.”
BUSINESS SUITS
AnnTaylor has relatively little litigation, said Eisenberg, with no pending lawsuit significant enough for
reference in recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings. When Eisenberg became GC in
2001, though, Ann Taylor was in the midst of a five-year-old shareholder class action, involving allegations that
the company misrepresented its inventory in 1994 and
1995. In 1998, the federal district court in Manhattan
dismissed the suit as inadequately pleaded, but the 2d
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the plaintiffs’
claims in 2000. Eisenberg worked closely with litigation
counsel at New York’s Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher &
Flom to expedite ongoing negotiations, which resulted
in a settlement in late 2001. Ann Taylor announced that
OUTSIDE COUNSEL
COMPANY
ANN TAYLOR STORES CORP.
CORPORATE/TRANSACTIONS
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Cleary,
Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
LICENSING
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
TRADEMARK
Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman
