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Activision Blizzard Inc has agreed to pay $35 million to pay U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it failed to implement systems to handle complaints from employees adequately and violated whistleblower protection regulations, the agency said on Friday.
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The SEC said the company knew employee retention issues were "a particularly important risk in its business" but did not have adequate measures in place to manage workplace misconduct complaints across business units between 2018 and 2021.
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"Activision Blizzard failed to implement necessary controls to collect and review employee complaints about workplace misconduct...
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Which left it without the means to determine whether larger issues existed that needed to be disclosed to investors,” Jason Burt, who heads the SEC's Denver office, said in a statement.
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The video game creator and publishing firm created the well-known "Call of Duty" game.
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Also, employees were required from 2016 to 2021 to inform the company if the SEC requested information from them, which is a violation of the rules for whistleblower protection, according to the agency in the announcement.
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Representatives for Activision Blizzard, which did not admit or deny the SEC's charges, said in a statement they were "pleased to have amicably resolved this matter" and had "enhanced" their workplace reporting and contract language.
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The company implemented modifications between May 2020 between May 2022 and May 2020 that improved the method of collecting complaints and communicating with top managers, The SEC stated in its decision.