SOC asks shareholders not to re-elect Activision Blizzard directors

Bobby Kotick and fellow directors failed to recognise unsafe workplaces, says the group.

The SOC Investment Group has written to Activision Blizzard shareholders urging that they do not re-elect several of the company’s board of directors.

The SOC has told shareholders they shouldn’t re-elect Bobby Kotick, Brian Kelly, Robert Morgado, Robert Corti, Barry Meyer and Peter Nolan in a letter sent ahead of Activision Blizzard’s annual meeting on June 21 (as reported by Games Industry).

The letter specifically says that each director named above “failed either to recognise that Activision Blizzard for years maintained unsafe workplaces exhibiting frequent and repeated sexual harassment, sexual assault, and gender discrimination, or to appropriately address the Company’s ‘frat house’ culture once it was publicly revealed.”

The group also advised shareholders to vote against Microsoft’s acquisition of the publisher; instead, shareholders voted for the action.

Activision Blizzard has been in the news for all the wrong reasons of late; the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a complaint against the company in September 2021, following earlier allegations of sexual harrassment. That filing followed a similar one by the Californian Department of Fair Employment and Housing back in July 2021.

We’ll keep you informed as this story progresses.