Activision Blizzard shareholders urged not to re-elect board members following "inexcusable passivity"

SOC Investment Group has written an open letter to Activision Blizzard shareholders, urging voters not to re-elect six board members, including CEO, Bobby Kotick.

As spotted by GI.biz, the letter comes ahead of Activision Blizzard’s annual meeting on 21st June and campaigns to remove Bobby Kotick, Brian Kelly, Robert Morgado, Robert Corti, Barry Meyer, and Peter Nolan from their positions.

“Each of these directors 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 by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) in its pending lawsuit, which was filed in July 2021,” the damning letter states.

20th July 2021 was when the DFEH filed its lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for “widespread sexual harassment and discriminatory practices” at the company.

“While shareholders await the assessment of the merger with Microsoft by anti-trust regulators, it is incumbent upon them to hold these current directors accountable for their multiple failures to act and the resulting reputational harm and declining share price.”

The SOC Investment Group “works with pension funds sponsored by unions affiliated with the Strategic Organising Centre, a coalition of four unions representing more than four million members, to enhance long term shareholder value through active ownership”. It purports to have “over $250 billion in assets under management” and are “substantial Activision shareholders”.