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California's Civil Rights Department (CRD) had sued the "Call of
Duty" maker after two years of investigation over allegations
that it routinely underpaid and failed to promote female
employees and condoned sexual harassment.
The CRD will withdraw the allegations of systemic sexual
harassment, according to the settlement agreement, seen by
Reuters. The remaining allegations resolved by the agreement
included that Activision discriminated against women, including
by denying promotion opportunities and paying them less than men
for doing substantially similar work, the CRD said in a
statement on Friday.
Activision will take additional steps to ensure fair pay and
promotion practices and provide monetary relief to women who
were employees or contract workers in California between Oct.
12, 2015, and Dec. 31, 2020, as part of the agreement, which is
subject to court approval, the CRD statement said.
"In the settlement agreement, the CRD expressly acknowledged
that 'no court or independent investigation has substantiated
any allegations that there has been systemic or widespread
sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard'," the videogame maker
said in a statement on Friday.
The company also said that no investigation substantiated that
its board or chief executive acted improperly in handling
instances of workplace misconduct.
Activision, which was bought in October by Microsoft for nearly
$69 billion, agreed in 2021 to pay up to $18 million to settle
similar claims made by the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission.
(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru and Daniel Wiessner in
Albany, New York; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh, Grant McCool,
Leslie Adler and William Mallard)
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