Activision Blizzard fined millions for poor record keeping of employee complaints

For years, Activision Blizzard kept a poor record when colleagues complained about workplace misconduct. This also made it more difficult for the developer to respond to those complaints. The company is therefore fined $ 35 million by a US regulator.

The developer did not have proper procedures and resources to track employee misconduct complaints across various business units, says the US Securities and Exchange Commission. As a result, the top of the company did not have the right information to see how often misconduct occurred in the workplace and how big this problem was. As a result, the company could not estimate whether these problems should be reported to shareholders, which is reason for the SEC to fine the company. According to the regulator, this took place between 2018 and 2021.

In addition, between 2016 and 2021, the company required former employees to notify Activision Blizzard if the SEC asked them questions. For example, the developer would probably want to be kept informed of SEC’s activities. This is also against the law.

SEC and Activision Blizzard have jointly agreed on a fine of $ 35 million, or 32.4 million euros. The settlement does not mean that Activision Blizzard admits that it was wrong. The company must adjust its actions.

Activision Blizzard has been under fire since 2019 for alleged workplace misconduct and a diseased work culture. It was first revealed that female employees were being paid to share data about their fertility and pregnancy with the company. Later, the US state of California stated that the company had a broad culture of sexual misconduct and sexual harassment. In June last year, the company itself indicated that it had found no evidence of systematic misconduct, partly based on the ‘relatively low’ number of reports of misconduct from employees. The SEC is now saying that the company did not keep track of this.