Activision Blizzard Faces New Sexual Harassment & Discrimination Lawsuit

Activision Blizzard cannot catch a break still.

The bigwig publisher that’s being acquired by Microsoft is facing more legal trouble, being hit with a new lawsuit containing fresh allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination. A Bloomberg report stated that attorney Lisa Bloom filed the lawsuit in the Los Angeles County Superior Court for a current employee named “Jane Doe”. Here’s the lawsuit:

“For years, Activision Blizzard’s open ‘frat boy’ environment fostered rampant sexism, harassment and discrimination with 700 reported incidents occurring under CEO Robert Kotick’s watch.”

Jane Doe joined the company in 2017 as a senior administrative assistant in the IT department. She was pressured regularly to drink alcohol and participate in lewd games. Her female employees were regularly subjected to sexual comments and groping by male colleagues during alcohol-fuelled “cube crawls” in the office. She failed in making multiple attempts to escape in different departments in the company, though she was eventually offered another role with a lower status and significantly lower salary after complaining directly to ex-Blizzard president J. Allen Brack. Furthermore, her November 2021 application for an executive assistant position was rejected after speaking out about her experiences with the company the following month.

As of now, Jane Doe is seeking multiple court orders. These include the start of a rotating HR department to stop conflicts of interest as well as the firing of Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. The latter is expected to leave the company after Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard for US$68.7 billion.