Activision commits to implementing measures to ensure equitable pay and promotion practices, along with offering financial restitution to women who were either employees or contract workers.
Activision Blizzard will pay roughly $50 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit by a California regulator that alleged the videogame maker discriminated against women employees, including denying them promotion opportunities and underpaying them.
California’s Civil Rights Department (CRD) filed a lawsuit against the “Call of Duty” creator following a two-year investigation into claims of systematic underpayment, lack of promotion for female employees, and the endorsement of sexual harassment.
The CRD will withdraw the allegations of systemic sexual harassment, according to the settlement agreement, seen by Reuters. The remaining allegations resolved by the agreement included that Activision discriminated against women, including by denying promotion opportunities and paying them less than men for doing substantially similar work, the CRD said in a statement on Friday.
Activision will take additional steps to ensure fair pay and promotion practices and provide monetary relief to women who were employees or contract workers in California between Oct. 12, 2015, and Dec. 31, 2020, as part of the agreement, which is subject to court approval, the CRD statement said.
“In the settlement agreement, the CRD explicitly recognized that ‘neither any court nor independent investigation has substantiated allegations of systemic or widespread sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard,'” stated the video game maker in a release on Friday.
The company also emphasized that no investigation has validated claims of improper conduct by its board or chief executive in addressing instances of workplace misconduct.
Activision, which was bought in October by Microsoft for nearly $69 billion, agreed in 2021 to pay up to $18 million to settle similar claims made by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.