After some hotly contested choices over the past two weeks, Activision Blizzard’s board of directors has been given a new panel of executives to see the company through. This is how Bobby Kotick, the director of Activision Blizzard, once again found himself democratically elected by the shareholders of the firm during the annual meeting dedicated to them this Tuesday, June 21, 2022. A re-election for a period of a year that did not please everyone…
A widely contested re-election
Since the legal case in progress since the summer of 2021 is taking its course (and even getting worse week after week) within Activision Blizzard, the reactions of such a re-election were quick to fuse. The CEO of the company has indeed been widely accused in several cases still under investigation, including his multiple attempts to cover up (or minimize) the case.
Even more recently, company management said “examine carefully” the request of the Comptroller of the State of New York which implied that the firm should be made public in order to prove that it implements considerable efforts in the prevention and the fight against harassment and discrimination in the workplace. Because if the request was approved by the shareholders, the company is not obliged to take it into account or even to follow it up. Its board of directors, on which Bobby Kotick sits, had also advised the shareholders upstream not to accept this request, and therefore to vote Against.
But if the firm is not required to respect this measure, however democratically voted, the founder of the group A Better ABK, Jessica Gonzalez, who has been working for several months already for a healthier work environment at Activision Blizzard King declared in the process that “Employees will force them to.”
The fight therefore continues on the side of the employees of Activision Blizzard even though they have recently suffered a new blow: having demanded that an employee sit on the board of directors, this request was declined there again in a democratic way with only 5% of routes For. In the aftermath, the company’s executive compensation was approved by 88%, leading some experts to believe that the situation may not be resolved in the near future, with a takeover by Microsoft being the only supposedly viable option considered. for the moment.