Activision to pay $50 million for workplace discrimination lawsuit as per Reuters.
Dec 15 (Reuters) – Activision Blizzard will pay roughly $50 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit by a California regulator that alleged the videogame maker discriminated against women employees, including denying them promotion opportunities and underpaying them.
California’s Civil Rights Department (CRD) had sued the “Call of Duty” maker after two years of investigation over allegations that it routinely underpaid, failed to promote female employees, and condoned sexual harassment.
According to the settlement agreement obtained by Reuters, the CRD will withdraw the allegations of systemic sexual harassment. According to the CRD, the remaining allegations resolved by the agreement included Activision discriminating against women, including denying them promotion opportunities and paying them less than men for doing substantially similar work.
As part of the agreement, Activision will take additional steps to ensure fair pay and promotion practices, as well as provide monetary relief to women who were employees or contract workers in California between Oct. 12, 2015, and Dec. 31, 2020, according to the CRD statement.
“In the settlement agreement, the CRD expressly acknowledged that ‘no court or independent investigation has substantiated any allegations that there has been systemic or widespread sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard’,”
the videogame maker said in a statement on Friday
The company also stated that no investigation found that its board of directors or chief executive acted improperly in dealing with instances of workplace misconduct.
Activision, which was bought in October by Microsoft (MSFT.O) for nearly $69 billion, agreed in 2021 to pay up to $18 million to settle similar claims made by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.