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Wall Street Journal today published a shocking (but probably unsurprising) exposé primarily about Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick's knowledge of a wide variety of sexual harassment and other incidents within his company. Reportedly he often covered up accusations and did not inform Activision board of directors about the various incidents, quietly settling out of court. The article is paywalled but here are some choice excerpts:
Source
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A lawyer for a former employee at Sledgehammer Games, an Activision-owned studio, alleged in the email that her client had been raped in 2016 and 2017 by her male supervisor after she had been pressured to consume too much alcohol in the office and at work events.
The female employee reported the incidents to Sledgehammer’s human-resources department and other supervisors, but nothing happened, according to the email, which threatened a lawsuit against the company.
Within months of receiving the email, said people familiar with the situation, Activision reached an out-of-court settlement with the woman, who also had reported one of the incidents to the police. Mr. Kotick didn’t inform the company’s board of directors about the alleged rapes or the settlement, said people with knowledge of the board.
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Mr. Kotick has told directors and other executives he wasn’t aware of many of the allegations of misconduct, and he has played down others, according to people familiar with the matter and internal documents.
Those documents, which include memos, emails and regulatory requests, and interviews with former employees and others familiar with the company, however, cast Mr. Kotick’s response in a different light. They show that he knew about allegations of employee misconduct in many parts of the company. He didn’t inform the board of directors about everything he knew, the interviews and documents show, even after regulators began investigating the incidents in 2018. Some departing employees who were accused of misconduct were praised on the way out, while their co-workers were asked to remain silent about the matters.
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In August, Activision named a longtime employee, Jennifer Oneal, to be Blizzard’s co-head, making her the first woman to lead one of the company’s business units. The following month, she sent an email to a member of Activision’s legal team in which she professed a lack of faith in Activision’s leadership to turn the culture around, saying “it was clear that the company would never prioritize our people the right way.”
Ms. Oneal said in the email she had been sexually harassed earlier in her career at Activision, and that she was paid less than her male counterpart at the helm of Blizzard, and wanted to discuss her resignation. “I have been tokenized, marginalized, and discriminated against,” wrote Ms. Oneal, who is Asian-American and gay.
She described a party for an Activision development studio she attended with Mr. Kotick around 2007 in which scantily clad women danced on stripper poles. At the same party, a DJ encouraged female attendees to drink more so the men would have a better time, according to another person who was present.
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Dan Bunting, co-head of Activision’s Treyarch studio, was accused by a female employee of sexually harassing her in 2017 after a night of drinking, according to people familiar with the incident. Activision’s human-resources department and other supervisors launched an internal investigation in 2019 and recommended that he be fired, but Mr. Kotick intervened to keep him, these people said. Mr. Bunting, who led Treyarch through the production of several successful Call of Duty games, was given counseling and allowed to remain at the company, these people said.
Mr. Bunting didn’t respond to requests for comment. The Activision spokeswoman said an outside investigation was conducted in 2020. “After considering potential actions in light of that investigation, the company elected not to terminate Mr. Bunting, but instead to impose other disciplinary measures,” she said. Mr. Bunting left the company after the Journal asked about the incident.
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Over the years, Mr. Kotick himself has been accused by several women of mistreatment both inside and outside the workplace, and in some instances has worked to settle the complaints quickly and quietly, according to people familiar with the incidents and documents reviewed by the Journal.
In 2006, one of his assistants complained that he had harassed her, including by threatening in a voice mail to have her killed, according to people familiar with the matter. He settled the matter out of court, the people said.
The Activision spokeswoman said: “Mr. Kotick quickly apologized 16 years ago for the obviously hyperbolic and inappropriate voice mail, and he deeply regrets the exaggeration and tone in his voice mail to this day.”
In 2007, he was sued by the flight attendant on a private jet he co-owned. The flight attendant claimed the plane’s pilot had sexually harassed her, and, after she complained to the other owner, Mr. Kotick fired her. The defendants denied the allegations. In a separate action related to legal fees in the case, an arbitrator, citing what he said was sworn testimony, wrote that Mr. Kotick told the flight attendant and her attorneys, “I’m going to destroy you.” A spokesman for Mr. Kotick denied that he said that.
In 2008, they settled by paying the attendant $200,000, according to the arbitrator’s decision. A spokesman for Mr. Kotick said he couldn’t have fired her in retaliation for complaining because she never complained directly to him.
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