Activision To Pay $35 Mln To Settle SEC Charges Related To Handling Of Complaints Of Workplace

(RTTNews) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Friday announced that video game publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI) has agreed to pay $35 million to settle charges related to its handling of workplace complaints.

SEC and Activision Blizzard will settle charges that it failed to maintain disclosure controls and procedures to ensure that the company could assess whether its disclosures pertaining to its workforce were adequate. The company also settled charges that it violated an SEC whistleblower protection rule.

According to the SEC's order, between 2018 and 2021, Activision Blizzard was aware that its ability to attract, retain, and motivate employees was a particularly important risk in its business, but it lacked controls and procedures among its separate business units to collect and analyze employee complaints of workplace misconduct.

As a result, the company's management lacked sufficient information to understand the volume and substance of employee complaints about workplace misconduct and did not assess whether any material issues existed that would have required public disclosure.

"The SEC's order finds that Activision Blizzard failed to implement necessary controls to collect and review employee complaints about workplace misconduct, which left it without the means to determine whether larger issues existed that needed to be disclosed to investors," said Jason Burt, Director of the SEC's Denver Regional Office. "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."