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. Separately, the SEC’s order finds that, between 2016 and 2021, Activision Blizzard executed separation agreements in the ordinary course of its business that violated a Commission whistleblower protection rule by requiring former employees to provide notice to the company if they received a request for information from the Commission’s staff.
[VG]Reagle wrote on Feb 3, 2023, 22:12:
$35 million because they didn’t count employee complaints so they could know if they had an issue. Not because they had an issue just because they didn’t count them? This is basically an unapproved tax that we have to pay. And the whistleblower rule is just a gotcha in the legal language better addressed by hey that’s unenforceable take it out. What a shake down by the government. Why don’t they go find a real employee issue, there’s plenty out there.