Activision Blizzard Paying $35 Million to Resolve SEC Investigation

The Wall Street Journal2023-02-04

WASHINGTON — Activision Blizzard Inc. agreed to pay $35 million to settle regulatory claims tied to its process for deciding whether its disclosures to investors should reflect any employee complaints...

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The company settled the probe without admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations.The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that female employees at Activision complained for years about alleged sexual assaults and mistreatment. The SEC’s probe examined what Activision’s management knew about the alleged incidents and how it addressed them internally, the Journal reported.A spokesman for Santa Monica, Calif.-based Activision said its board had concluded there wasn’t “widespread or systemic harassment, retaliation or discrimination” at the company and that it was pleased to have “amicably” resolved the matter over its workplace disclosures.“As the order recognizes, we have enhanced our disclosure processes with regard to workplace reporting and updated our separation contract language,” he said. “We did so as part of our continuing commitment to operational excellence and transparency.”Public companies such as Activision, based in Santa Monica, Calif., have a duty under investor-protection laws to maintain a system for ensuring their disclosures reflect material risks and business developments.Activision’s system wasn’t designed to collect and analyze complaints about workplace misconduct across its separate business units, the SEC said in a settlement order. As a result, Activision’s management and directors often didn’t have information about employee complaints or incidents involving harassment, the order said.The company updated its processes between 2020 and 2022 to better ensure that employee complaints are documented and communicated to Activision’s senior management and lawyers, according to the SEC.The settlement also said that Activision’s separation agreements with employees from 2016 to 2021 included an improper clause requiring ex-workers to tell the company if agencies such as the SEC contacted them about reports of misconduct. The SEC said that requirement violated the SEC’s whistleblower-protection rules, which seek to ensure that company insiders aren’t prevented from informing regulators about wrongdoing.The $35 million fine is a significant penalty for an enforcement case focused on a company’s disclosure procedures. The SEC under ChairGary Gensler and Enforcement DirectorGurbir S. Grewal has ratcheted up penalties, saying fines need to be higher to effectively deter wrongdoing.Activision is known for making hit videogame franchises including “Call of Duty,” “Candy Crush” and “World of Warcraft.” It reported $8.8 billion in revenue for 2021 and had approximately 9,800 full-time and part-time employees, regulatory filings show. The company is due to release fourth-quarter and 2022 full-year earnings Monday.The SEC case is one of several investigations into Activision that preceded the company’s pending $75 billion acquisition by Microsoft Corp. announced early last year.In 2021, Activision agreed to pay $18 million to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to settle allegations of gender-based harassment and retaliation. A California judge approved the settlement in March. The agency had been investigating the company since 2018.California’s Civil Rights Department sued Activision in mid-2021, alleging the videogame company ignored numerous employee complaints of sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation. At the time, the agency was called the California Department of Fair Housing and Employment. Activision employees responded with protests and called for the company’s longtime Chief ExecutiveBobby Kotickto step down.Activision has denied the state’s charges, and it made several failed attempts to get that case dismissed. It sued the department in December over claims that it improperly slow-walked or withheld information about its contacts with the media and labor unions regarding the case.Separately, The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2021 that Mr. Kotick didn’t inform the company’s board of directors about some accusations of sexual misconduct within the company, including alleged rapes. Activision at the time said the article painted a misleading view of the company and its CEO and that it ignored “important changes underway to make this the industry’s most welcoming and inclusive workplace.”After the succession of accusations led investors to flee the stock, Microsoft saw an opening to make a deal, the Journal reported shortly after it was announced. The transaction, which Microsoft values at $68.7 billion after adjusting for Activision’s net cash, would be its largest ever for a videogame heavyweight if completed.The deal is now under scrutiny in the U.S. and overseas. In December, the Federal Trade Commission sued Microsoft to block it, saying it is illegal because it would harm competition in the videogame industry by giving Microsoft the ability to control how consumers beyond users of its own Xbox consoles and subscription services access Activision’s games. The company could raise prices for people who don’t use Microsoft’s hardware to access the games or even cut off access entirely, the FTC said. Microsoft has said it wouldn’t do those things and that the deal would increase competition in videogaming.","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":true,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[{"id":9955253002,"gmtCreate":1675470671907,"gmtModify":1676539004870,"author":{"id":"3574547619690492","authorId":"3574547619690492","name":"UTOtrader","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/82be6befb29ac8516e463638d3f659d5","vip":1,"crmLevel":5,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"3574547619690492","authorIdStr":"3574547619690492"},"htmlText":"T","listText":"T","text":"T","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9955253002","repostId":2308661888,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9955227801,"gmtCreate":1675469668403,"gmtModify":1676539004766,"author":{"id":"4089158281473970","authorId":"4089158281473970","name":"Jeffljh","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/45f2c1fbb7c591d94ecd044034c418c4","vip":1,"crmLevel":5,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"idStr":"4089158281473970","authorIdStr":"4089158281473970"},"htmlText":"Ok.tks","listText":"Ok.tks","text":"Ok.tks","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9955227801","repostId":2308661888,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"}],"isCommentEnd":false,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":75,"commentSize":2,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.29.3","shortVersion":"4.29.3","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2308661888"}