SOC investment group is a shareholder organization committed to "organizing workers' capital into an effective voice of corporate accountability". The organization had previously criticized the remuneration of CEO Bobby Kotick (and recently asked for his removal), and urged the company's shareholders to vote against the re-election of six of the company's ten board members.
In a letter to shareholders, the organization said that Kotick, Brian Kelly, Robert Morgado, Robert Corti, Barry Meyer and Peter Nolan failed to realize that "Activision Blizzard has maintained unsafe workplaces for many years", or failed to solve these problems after the 2021 lawsuit filed by the California Department of fair employment and housing was exposed.
The primary task of the upcoming annual general meeting of shareholders is to elect ten directors of the company. This is a very routine matter, which is usually carried out according to the wishes of the current board of directors - in this case, the Board unanimously recommends that shareholders vote for the election of each nominated director. "Unless otherwise instructed by the shareholders, the proxy solicited in this power of attorney will vote to select ten nominees," the proposal points out, which basically means that if you are a minority shareholder and do not explicitly vote against the nominees, your vote will also be counted as yes.
Therefore, voting against the nominee requires some extra efforts, but SOC investment group hopes that shareholders can take this step. The organization said that after dfeh filed a lawsuit, the shareholders of Activision Blizzard expected the leadership and responsibility of the board of directors. What they got was a long silence, followed by a statement: "failed to clarify the unresolved issues, such as when the board of directors became aware of the company's problems before July 20".
SOC investment group wrote: "this degree of passivity is disappointing for any board of directors, but considering the seriousness of the dynamic situation, it is inexcusable."
"In the event that the board of directors has taken any action against these numerous allegations, it has been vaguely asserting that the company is taking appropriate measures to solve its problems, creating a new board committee composed of two female directors by november2021, and adding two new female directors before and at the 2022 general meeting of shareholders. Although these small changes are not unwelcome, they are clearly far from being tangible The situation indisputably demands a thorough clean-up and serious self-examination. "
Replacing Kotick and others is seen as a start, not an end. SOC investment group said, "under the new and more diversified leadership, the board of directors of Activision Blizzard needs to reform its supervision practices and procedures to ensure that there will be no crisis like the one the company is currently experiencing in the future."
Of course, none of these board members is likely to be re elected, but the continuous campaign of SOC has slowly weakened some institutional cornerstones. For example, in August, 2020, an SOC complaint (then in the name of CTW Investment Group) resulted in nearly three-quarters of the voting shares rejecting the proposed compensation scheme for EA executives; One year later, the executive compensation plan proposed by Activision Blizzard won only 54% of the shareholders' votes, compared with 82% in 2019 and 92% in 2018.
SOC investment group also recently urged shareholders to vote against Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, although it was approved by an overwhelming majority of shareholders.