Activision Blizzard will pay a $35 million to settle an SEC probe over whistleblower protection violations and disclosure failings.
The SEC claimed workplace misconduct complaints were neither collected nor analyzed employee complaints as expected by public disclosure regulations. "Moreover, taking action to impede former employees from communicating directly with the Commission staff about a possible securities law violation is not only bad corporate governance, it is illegal," SEC director Jason Burt said.
The settlement is not an admission or denial of wrongdoing but concludes a probe that focused on Activision Blizzard's standards from 2018 to 2021. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick was aware of reports of alleged sexual misconduct at the company, including alleged rape"Mr. Kotick would not have been informed of every report of misconduct at every Activision Blizzard company, nor would he reasonably be expected to have been updated on all personnel issues," an Activision Blizzard spokesperson said at the time.
The SEC filing claimed Activision Blizzard required "a significant number" of departing employees who signed separation agreements to tell Activision Blizzard if regulators tried to contact them, or even if those employees wished to make a complaint of their own. Activision Blizzard's requirement that ex-employees notify the company violated federal whistleblower protections, the SEC claimed.
The SEC order did not explicitly mention Kotick or sexual harassment claims by some employees. Activision Blizzard had been under SEC investigation over the company's handling of sexual and personal harassment since 2021, the Wall Street Journal previously
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