What you need to know
- Activision Blizzard is being sued by New York City.
- The lawsuit claims that CEO Bobby Kotick was not fit to negotiate the sale of the company to Microsoft.
- Activision Blizzard has been embroiled in legal trouble since a lawsuit was filed in July 2021 against the company.
- That lawsuit alleged that Activision Blizzard allowed sexist workplace practices to go unpunished.
Activision Blizzard and its CEO Bobby Kotick continue to be targetted by allegations and new lawsuits. Now, New York City is joining in.
New York City is suing Activision Blizzard (as shared by Axios), claiming that Kotick was "unfit" to negotiate the sale of the company to Microsoft. The lawsuit is specifically being filed by the New York City Employees' Retirement System, who own stock in Activision blizzard.
"Given Kotick's personal responsibility and liability for Activision's broken workplace, it should have been clear to the Board that he was unfit to negotiate a sale of the Company," the suit states. As part of the lawsuit, New York City Employees' Retirement System is demanding information on the other unknown buyers who were reportedly interested in Activision Blizzard.
On Jan. 18, 2022, Microsoft agreed to acquire Activision Blizzard for $95 per share, a deal worth almost $69 billion. Activision Blizzard shareholders overwhelmingly agreed to the purchase on April 28, 2022, with over 98% of the shares voted "Yes."
The deal, which is slated to close sometime in Microsoft's fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, will add Activision Blizzard to Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks as an Xbox first-party publisher. It's the largest video game industry acquisition ever, overshadowing Take-Two Interactive's purchase of Zynga and Tencent's investment into Supercell.
