Two Activision Blizzard shareholders have filed a lawsuit call of Duty Publisher for the production supposedly insufficient Disclosures in its recent filings with the SEC about its transaction Sold to Microsoft for $68.7 billion. The investors continued to claim that large payouts for CEO Bobby Kotick and others that would result from the deal created a massive conflict of interest.
As first reported by igamesnewsshareholder Kyle Watson filed a lawsuit in California on February 24 and called Activision Blizzard recently several hundred pages long proxy statement to the SEC outlines proposed deal with Microsoft “materially misleading and incomplete.” Basically, it is claimed that the The deal is better for Activision Blizzard executives and board members as it is the average investor. Watson’s lawyers argue The company attempts to cover up this fact by leaving specific information about how the deal came about and who will remain employed after the SEC filings are completed.
A second shareholder lawsuit with similar claims was filed by Shiva Stein on February 25. as igamesnews notes, however, that Stein is reportedly filing such complaints on a regular basis. Accordingly Reuterssome argue they are often frivolous, while others say they help companies keep their records honest. “We disagree with the allegations made in this complaint and look forward to presenting our arguments to the court.” a said a spokesman for Activision Blizzard igamesnews.
The lawsuits are certainly right about one thing: Kotick and the rest of his C-suite have been golden parachutes if the Microsoft deal goes through. as axios reported Last week, Kotick could get as much as $22 million if the company’s board, many of them are his friendsDecide that he has done enough to remedy the years of workplace abuse that reportedly took place under his supervision.
Here are some of the other massive executive payouts if they stay six to eight months after closing the deal:
- CFO Armin Zerza: $25.3 million.
- Chief Operating Officer Daniel Alegre: $29.1 million
- Chief Administrative Officer Brian Bulatao: $11.3 million
- Chief Legal Secretary Gscold dIxton: $14.7 million.
Bulatao and Dixton haven’t even been with Activision Blizzard for a full year. Bulatao joined in March 2021 and Dixton arrived in June 2021 to replace him Chris Walther, the previous Chief Legal Officer, who stands out finished his more than a decade-long tenure a month before the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed its lawsuit claim widespread sexual harassment and discrimination in the company.
Bulatao meanwhile is the former lackey of the Trump administration who emailed the developers at Activision Blizzard last December asking them not to organize in unions. Quality assurance tester at Call of Duty Warzone Studio Raven Software is known to have been ahead of the curve anyway, and it is currently fighting the company hold an election to be officially recognized by the National Labor Relations Board. administration however, tried to delay the proceedings and argued that either everyone in the studio has to unionize or nobody can.
As part of this anti-union offensive, the company has held internal meetings to spread negative information about unions. earlier this month, The Washington Post reported that Crow Ssenior director, David Pellas told a meeting full of developers who A union would be bad for the studio because it could prevent the administration from forcing developers to work overtime in the run-up to a new launch, resulting in inferior games.
call of Duty development has historically run on a notoriously crunch-heavy schedule in order to comply with the annual release calendar. Aside from being bad for workers, it has also resulted in less-than-stellar games on occasion. Bloomberg recently reported that Activision Blizzard has decided not to release a new main line call of Duty in 2023 for the first time in decades, partly because recent entries have underperformed.
Earlier this week, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin sent an addressed letter right after Kotick Tell the CEO to “deal with workers in good faith and stop all efforts to undermine your employees.” Activision Blizzard’s pending deal with Microsoft would largely prohibit the company from entering into a collective bargaining agreement with its employees unless Microsoft has agreed to it. Shortly thereafter, the deal was first announced, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said in an interview he wasn’t familiar enough with unions to comment on Activision Blizzard employees ccurrent organizational efforts.
