NYC sues Activision Blizzard over Kotick's handling of Microsoft purchase

New York City claims that Kotick was not fit to handle the acquisition negotiations in a new lawsuit.

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Activision Blizzard is currently in the midst of a lawsuit from the State of California, and has now drawn the ire of New York. NYC is suing the video game company as a direct result of Bobby Kotick’s handling of the negotiations that led to the recent Microsoft activision.

The news of NYC filing a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard comes from an Axios report. According to the outlet, New York City Employees’ Retirement System filed the lawsuit in Delaware on April 26. The organization actually owns stock in Activision, and is alleging that Bobby Kotick’s handling of the situation directly caused the stock to drop in value.

nyc activision blizzard lawsuit

“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… but it wasn’t.” More specifically, the group is stating that Bobby Kotick intentionally rushed negotiation talks with Microsoft in late 2021 in an attempt to prevent himself from being held responsible following the myriad of sexual misconduct and discrimination allegations against the company.

NYC had reportedly been trying to gain access to internal Activision Blizzard documents since last year, hoping to discover just how much Bobby Kotick did or didn’t know about the behavior going on within the company prior to it becoming public. They’re now demanding these documents, as well as several other materials, as a part of the lawsuit.

The NYC lawsuit is just the latest in what has been a wave of legal trouble for Activision Blizzard as a result of the company’s extensive history of misconduct and discrimination. The company is currently still embroiled in a case with the State of California. We’ll continue to monitor the ongoing situation at Activision Blizzard and provide necessary updates.

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_

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