The California Department of Civil Rights has arrived Colony with Activision Blizzard late last week two years after the state regulator filed a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination, unequal pay and a culture of sexual harassment at the video game company.
Activision Blizzard, which publishes hit games such as the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft series, agreed to pay $54 million and committed to implementing measures to ensure fair pay and fair promotions. Nearly $46 million of the money will go toward compensating workers, especially women who were employees or contractors with the company from 2015 to 2020. Although the details of the settlement have been ironed out, it is still subject to court approval.
“If approved by the court, this settlement agreement represents a major step forward and will provide immediate relief to Activision Blizzard workers,” said Kevin Kish, Director of the California Department of Civil Rights. The agency, formerly known as the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, changed its name last year. Activision Blizzard operates from its headquarters in Santa Monica, California.
The agency filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2021, alleging that the company violated rules under the Equal Pay Act and the state’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. The California Department of Civil Rights will withdraw its claims as part of the settlement, as reported an agreement That “no court or independent investigation has substantiated any allegations of systematic or widespread sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard.”
The settlement also states that the California Department of Civil Rights’ investigation did not provide evidence of illegal conduct on behalf of the company’s board of directors, its executives or its CEO, Bobby Kotick.
In February, Activision Blizzard agreed to a $35 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over its failure to “implement controls necessary to collect and review employee complaints of workplace misconduct,” ultimately withholding that information from disclosure to investors.
The lawsuit filed in California began a dramatic era at Activision Blizzard that included employee strikes, inflammatory statements from executives, unstable stock prices, and persistent concerns that the company had fostered a toxic workplace culture to the detriment of its employees.
The sequence of events eventually led Microsoft to make a move to acquire the company — in a $68.7 billion maneuver that regulators ended in October. Longtime Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, deeply embroiled in a years-long controversy, will leave the company at the end of the year.