Activision Blizzard Clears Itself Of Any Wrongdoing

Image: Activision Blizzard / Kotaku

Nearly a 12 months after an explosive lawsuit by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing kicked off a firestorm of sexual harassment and discrimination allegations at Activision Blizzard, a Board of Directors working group investigating the corporate has launched its findings. Led by a 25-year veteran of the Call of Duty writer, the group concluded there was by no means any “systemic issue with harassment, discrimination or retaliation” at Activision Blizzard.

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“Contrary to many of the allegations, the Board and its external advisors have determined that there is no evidence to suggest that Activision Blizzard senior executives ever intentionally ignored or attempted to downplay the instances of gender harassment that occurred and were reported,” the Workplace Responsibility Committee wrote to shareholders in a June 16 SEC submitting. “While there are some substantiated instances of gender harassment, those unfortunate circumstances do not support the conclusion that Activision senior leadership or the Board were aware of and tolerated gender harassment or that there was ever a systemic issue with harassment, discrimination, or retaliation.”

These findings are aimed squarely at refuting allegations within the DFEH lawsuit and people raised in a November 2021 Wall Street Journal investigation. The latter reported that Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick did not report a 2018 settlement with an alleged rape sufferer at Call of Duty: Vanguard maker Sledgehammer Games to the corporate’s Board.

The report additionally claimed Kotick threatened to have his feminine assistant killed in a 2006 voicemail and interfered to forestall the co-head of Call of Duty: Black Ops studio Treyarch, Dan Bunting, from being fired for alleged sexual harassment. An Activision spokesperson informed the Wall Street Journal on the time that Kotick had at all times stored the Board knowledgeable, apologized to the assistant for the hyperbolic language, and that Bunting was correctly disciplined when the incident occurred. However, the Wall Street Journal reported that he resigned from the corporate shortly after it requested concerning the allegations. Bunting denies this. “Mr. Bunting’s departure had nothing to do with those allegations,” his lawyer, Bobby Schwartz, informed Kotaku in a press release, calling the insinuation “false” and “harmful,” however not disputing the timeline.

The Board’s abstract says its investigation was primarily based on e mail communications, contemporaneous notes, and different supply paperwork, in addition to recent interviews with present and former staff. But the Board members don’t go into rather more element concerning the extent of the investigation, the way it was carried out, or what uncooked knowledge was furnished to exterior consultants like former EEOC chair Gilbert Casellas, who concluded that there was “no widespread harassment, pattern or practice of harassment, or systemic harassment at Activision Blizzard or at any of its business units [between September 1, 2016 and December 31, 2021].”

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It’s unclear what number of whole present and former staff have been interviewed as a part of the investigation, why it was restricted to solely the final 5 years, or how a lot Casella was paid. Casella and Activision Blizzard didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

The abstract can be arduous to sq. with the landmark $18 million settlement with the EEOC for current victims of harassment and discrimination on the firm. “What we have come to realize over the past several months is that there are many truths about our company—individual and collective, experiential and data-driven—and sometimes they can be difficult to reconcile,” the Board writes. It doesn’t elaborate on the main points or nature of these opposing “truths,” however goes on to complain about being wrongly maligned by an “unrelenting barrage of media criticism.”

The remainder of the group’s findings are devoted to ahead trying statements about new finest practices being put in place like a brand new Ethics & Compliance and a zero-tolerance harassment coverage. In some circumstances, these initiatives seem to have been a response to worker calls for marshaled collectively by the ABK Workers Alliance. And in others, they’ve fallen wanting these asks. Current and former Activision Blizzard employees are nonetheless calling on the corporate to immediately contain it within the choice making course of for stamping out harassment and discrimination on the firm.

Some staff have already gained that proper legally by means of a profitable union election for QA builders at its Raven Software studio. Currently within the midst of bargaining their first contract, Microsoft, set to purchase Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, not too long ago introduced it will stay impartial on union issues as a part of its pitch to regulators tasked with approving the acquisition.

Update: 6/17/22, 4:35 p.m. ET: Added remark from Bunting’s lawyer and clarified the allegations towards him have been alleged.