Activision Blizzard fired 20 employees because of a harassment lawsuit and asked to suspend its consideration
At the end of July, the California authorities filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, accusing the company of discrimination and harassment. It turned out that from that moment the publisher fired 20 employees and brought the same number to disciplinary responsibility.
This was stated in an interview with the Financial Times by the senior president of Activision Blizzard for corporate affairs Frances Townsend (Frances Townsend). She did not name the dismissed employees, so it is unclear whether Luis Barriga, Jesse McCree and Jonathan LeCraft were among them. These developers lost their positions in mid-August, but the company did not specify the reason for their dismissal.
Nevertheless, Townsend noted that the layoffs affected both individual developers and managers. At the same time, none of the board of directors or top management of Activision Blizzard lost their jobs.
To replace the dismissed, the company decided to hire 22 people in the ethics department. In particular, they will deal with the scandal that Activision Blizzard got into.
Activision Blizzard is now asking the court to suspend consideration of the lawsuit by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH). The company refers to a recent statement by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that DFEH lawyers violate professional ethics.
Briefly recall that EEOC, like DFEH, also opposed what is happening in Activision Blizzard. But it turned out that two DFEH lawyers used to work at the EEOC and participated in the investigation against Activision Blizzard. Although the agencies work independently of each other, the actions of lawyers still create a conflict of interest. According to Stephen Totilo of Axios, a quarrel between the EEOC and DFEH could lead to “the termination of the DFEH case if the court agrees.”
Earlier, Activision Blizzard settled a lawsuit from the EEOC, agreeing, among other things, to create an $18 million fund to pay affected employees.
