Federal regulators say the grocery chain swapped out staff based on national origin
The federal government says a popular Asian grocery chain built up a non-Chinese management team, then, it alleges, pushed those managers out because of their background.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued Tawa Supermarket, the company behind the 99 Ranch Market chain, claiming it discriminated against employees because they were not Chinese. The complaint was filed on June 30, 2026, in federal court in the Central District of California, and it lays out a fact pattern that runs in an unusual direction for a national-origin case.
It begins, according to the filing, with a leadership change in late 2015. The complaint says Tawa then hired a new vice president of human resources who was not Chinese and, under that leadership, brought on non-Chinese managers as district managers, store managers, and loss prevention staff. The EEOC alleges the company did this "to diversify employees to appeal to perceived customer preferences."
The direction reversed, the agency alleges, after another leadership change in late 2016. From that point, the complaint alleges, Tawa "terminated recently hired, non-Chinese managers based on their national origin to replace them with Chinese managers." The EEOC says the non-Chinese HR vice president was forced to resign. It says two non-Chinese district managers, both described as having satisfactory performance, were terminated in August and September 2017 and replaced with Chinese managers. Two non-Chinese store managers and a group of loss prevention and safety managers were let go around the same time, according to the filing.
The complaint reaches the sales floor as well. The EEOC alleges non-Chinese store employees were paid less than Chinese co-workers for the same duties, passed over for promotion, cut to part-time hours while Chinese colleagues kept full-time schedules, and fired without the step-by-step discipline the agency says others received. The complaint also alleges the company "did not require Chinese employees to speak English at work and/or it did not require Chinese employees to wear gloves," pointing to rules it says were enforced unevenly.
The legal frame is worth pausing on. Title VII protects workers of every national origin, not just those in the minority at a given workplace. A staff that leans heavily toward one group can still draw scrutiny if the evidence suggests people were treated differently because of their background. The EEOC's case here is built on comparators - matching jobs, matching performance, different results - the same pattern HR records are supposed to be able to explain.
The timeline is also a lesson in patience and paperwork. The complaint says the agency issued Letters of Determination on June 27, 2022, amended them on April 10, 2025, and issued notices of conciliation failure on July 8, 2025, before going to court. For HR teams, that stretch shows how long a charge can sit before it becomes a lawsuit, and why personnel files need to hold up years after the fact.
The EEOC is asking the court for a permanent injunction, back pay, compensatory and punitive damages, and orders requiring Tawa to overhaul its practices. No dollar figure is named; the complaint leaves amounts "to be determined at trial."
None of the allegations have not been tested, and no court has ruled on the claims.
