Representatives of the city employees of “New York City” have filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty, WoW, Diablo 3). They see the pensions of their teachers, police officers, and firefighters threatened. It is believed that CEO Bobby Kotick is acting out of self-interest, selling his gaming company Activision Blizzard hastily and below value to save his own neck.
Who is suing?
- The representatives of a pension fund for teachers, police officers, and firefighters in New York City are suing.
- In the USA, it is common for specific professions to secure their retirement by purchasing bonds from companies. The group in New York has invested significantly in the publicly traded company “Activision Blizzard”.
- Activision Blizzard is reportedly looking to sell its company to Microsoft. The pension fund of New York believes that too little money per share is resulting. They would like to have achieved a higher price. It is believed that the current deal is only happening because Bobby Kotick wants to escape responsibility and therefore wanted to sell as quickly as possible.
Activision Blizzard is to be sold “hastily” and “below value”
What is Activision Blizzard being accused of? Essentially, it is believed that Activision Blizzard is now being sold “hastily”, primarily due to Bobby Kotick, who is trying to save his own neck.
In the months leading up to the sale, accusations against the CEO of the company surfaced, stating that he was aware of the issues at Blizzard but did nothing to address them. He did not share his information, as he was supposed to, with the board of directors.
Activision Blizzard faced sharp criticism after a sexism scandal. Employees demanded Kotick’s resignation.
Reportedly, Microsoft made its acquisition offer just 3 days after a damning insider report appeared in the Wall Street Journal that raised serious allegations against Kotick.
This is what the plaintiffs say:
When considering Kotick’s personal responsibility and his liability for the broken work culture at Activision, it should be clear for the board that he was not suitable to conduct negotiations for the sale of the company. But it was apparently not clear.
From New York’s perspective, the sale of Activision Blizzard to Microsoft would now allow the responsible parties to escape their liability. In doing so, they would have violated their “fiscal responsibility”.
The $95 that Microsoft is paying per share is too little. Activision Blizzard would have already had this value before the scandals.
Activision Blizzard is to disclose secret documents
What is being demanded now? The city of New York City demands that Activision Blizzard publish a number of internal and secret documents. They want to see a list of other potential buyers that allegedly existed.
Activision Blizzard had announced that an investor specifically wanted to buy Blizzard and separate it from Activision – but further details were not made public.
They also want to know more precisely what Bobby Kotick’s understanding of the scandals was. The representatives of New York City want to gather more information to prepare a lawsuit against the board of directors, as they believe the responsible parties have “wasted the value of the company”.
We also engaged with Kotick’s reasoning for why they had to sell Activision Blizzard to Microsoft:
Activision Blizzard explains why they had to sell themselves instead of buying EA
