Over the past few years, Activision Blizzard has been the protagonist of a number of controversial topics, with reports revealing the company's problematic toxic workplace culture and continuous and widespread abuse and harassment of employees. The company is about to be acquired by Microsoft, which will only make things more complicated.
Overall, it is not surprising that all this has led to its legal consequences in many ways (although one of the many lawsuits facing the company has just been resolved recently).
Now, Activision Blizzard is facing another lawsuit: New York City officials accuse Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick of being eager to sell the company to Microsoft To avoid responsibility for wrongdoing and get huge bonuses.
According to Axios, the company is being sued by the New York City employee retirement system and the city's pension funds for teachers, police and firefighters. The group owns the shares of Activision. In the lawsuit, it said that CEO Bobby Kotick was personally responsible for the company's problems, which devalued its shares, and the upcoming Microsoft acquisition was also questioned.
"Given Kotick's personal responsibility and obligation for the destruction of the Activision workplace, the board of directors should be aware that he is not suitable for negotiating the sale of the company. But that is not the case," the lawsuit statement said
The lawsuit further claimed that Kotick and members of the board of directors of Activision Blizzard tried to use Microsoft's transaction to "evade their responsibility for serious breach of trust obligations". At the same time, Microsoft's valuation of $95 per share is also considered to underestimate the company's value, because the company's trading price was close to this price before the company's dispute began last year.
The organization asked Activision Blizzard to hand over a large number of internal documents, including Microsoft's transaction, five other companies that were once potential buyers, the memorandum of the board of directors, and documents that helped determine Kotick's understanding of the company's sexual harassment (Kotick reportedly knew that the company had sexual harassment, but it was covered up for a long time).