Microsoft Corp. is taking steps to eliminate the contractual requirement that employees pursue sexual harassment claims through arbitration rather than through the courts, a move that comes on the back on numerous sexual harassment claims in the tech industry and other industries.

President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said that although Microsoft had never made arbitration obligatory, after reviewing some contracts, it found that this wasn’t always the case for some employees.

“We concluded that if we were to advocate for legislation ending arbitration requirements for sexual harassment, we should not have a contractual requirement for our own employees that would obligate them to arbitrate sexual harassment claims,” Smith said in a blog post. Effective immediately, the contractual agreement for arbitration in sexual harassment claims is waived, said Smith.

The tech giant just became the first Fortune 100 company to endorse a bill – Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Act of 2017 – introduced by Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham that would stop companies from contractually obligating employees from settling disputes in-house.

It’s thought that about 60 million Americans have signed contracts containing such arbitration clauses. “When a company has a forced arbitration policy, it means that if a worker is sexually harassed or sexually assaulted in the workplace, they are not allowed to go to court over it,” said Senator Gillibrand. “Instead, they have to go into a secret meeting with their employer and try to work out some kind of deal that really only protects the predator.”

No employees, she said, should have to work within such an unfair system. Smith added that although private arbitration can work in some cases, it has been made evident of late that regarding sexual harassment claims, arbitration has proved to be insufficient. “The silencing of voices has helped perpetuate sexual harassment, the country should guarantee that people can go to court to ensure these concerns can always be heard,” said Smith.

The news comes just a week after it was revealed a former intern at Microsoft had claimed that she had been raped by another intern outside of work, only to see Microsoft hire both of them in spite of the allegation. However, a spokesperson for Microsoft did say that the company had “encouraged her to take her complaint to law enforcement, and offered to connect her with additional resources such as victim advocacy groups.”

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