[rdtsc]

Technically they didn't admit guilt, but from a PR point of view they did.

So from that respect, they probably opened themselves up for further scrutiny from future applicants whether they engaged in ageism or not.

I suspect they feared during the discovery process things would be found in the internal communications that do show some kind of -ism or other things that would just look bad for them, so throwing $11m at the problem to go away quickly seemed better.