A Maryland environmental remediation services firm has agreed to pay $415,000 to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission race, gender discrimination and harassment lawsuit.

The attorney for the firm, Rockville, Maryland-based ACM Services Inc., has denied the charges and said the company settled the case to avoid the cost of litigation.

The agency on Friday said ACM had exclusively used word-of-mouth recruitment practices for field laborer positions in order to avoid hiring black job applicants. The EEOC also charged that ACM refused to hire black job applicants or female applicants for field laborer positions.

The firm was also charged with subjecting two Hispanic female employees to harassment based on sex, national origin and race, and engaging in unlawful discrimination against them by terminating them when they opposed their treatment. The company was charged with violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The settlement provides for $305,000 to be paid to a class of persons not hired or recruited because of race or sex and $110,000 to be paid to the two Hispanic female employees.

The three-year consent decree resolving the lawsuit also enjoins ACM from engaging in any future race, sex or national origin discrimination or retaliation, and provides that the company implement numerical goals for hiring qualified black and female applicants, among other provisions.

“We are pleased that ACM Services worked with us to resolve this lawsuit quickly and without engaging in protracted litigation,” EEOC Philadelphia regional attorney Debra M. Lawrence said in a statement. “These affirmative measures will benefit all employees and applicants. All employers should consider proactive measures to foster equal employment opportunities for job applicants and workers.”

“ACM is very proud of the stellar reputation it has built over many years of hard work,” ACM attorney Jeffrey M. Schwaber, a principal with Stein Sperling Bennett De Jong Driscoll P.C. in Rockville, said in a statement. “It employs a qualified and diverse workforce, and does not tolerate discrimination of any kind.”

“ACM denies any wrongdoing, but has a company to run, and after years of back-and-forth discussion with EEOC about this matter, ACM made the difficult decision to settle this case in a manner that avoided the enormous cost and distraction of protracted litigation, and to move on with the work it is set up to do. The matter has been resolved by agreement, and ACM looks forward to continued service and success.”

In September, restaurant chain McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurants Inc. agreed to pay $1.3 million to resolve an EEOC-class race discrimination lawsuit in which it was charged with refusing to hire African-Americans for front-of-the-house positions at its two Baltimore restaurant locations.