Activision Blizzard has agreed to pay A$50.6 million to settle charges that the gaming company violated government rules for the protection of whistleblowers, and for failure to disclose sexual complaint information to investors.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission launched its investigation in 2021, following a lawsuit filed by California’s Civil Rights Department that alleged a culture of sexual harassment spanning years.
This particular probe was prompted by allegations made by that suit, however, does not deal directly with workplace culture or specific sexual harassment charges.
It instead alleged that Activision Blizzard failed to reported these workplace complaints to investors, and that separation agreements from 2016 that dictated that ex-workers must first inform the company before taking any complaints to government officials were against the law.
“Taking action to impede former employees from communicating directly with the Commission staff about a possible securities law violation is not only bad corporate governance, it is illegal,” explained the SEC’s regional office director Jason Burt.
“Activision Blizzard failed to implement necessary controls to collect and review employee complaints about workplace misconduct, which left it without the means to determine whether larger issues existed that needed to be disclosed to investors.”
Activision Blizzard spokesperson Joe Christinat said: “As the order recognises, we have enhanced our disclosure processes with regard to workplace reporting and updated our separation contract language. We did so as part of our continuing commitment to operational excellence and transparency. Activision Blizzard is confident in its workplace disclosures.”
Under the terms of the settlement, Activision Blizzard is neither making an admission of guilt, nor a denial.
