NYC is suing Activision-Blizzard, claiming Bobby Kotick rushed the sale of Microsoft to avoid liability

New York City is the latest company to sue Activision-Blizzard following the company’s numerous sexual misconduct scandals.

On Jan. 19, Microsoft shocked the gaming landscape by announcing it had bought Activision-Blizzard for a whopping $70 billion.

The news came as Activision came under pressure from both outside and inside after numerous lawsuits were filed alleging that employees were victims of sexual misconduct, among other things.

Now a number of entities in New York’s public sector — firefighters, law enforcement, and educational institutions — are claiming that Bobby Kotick threw himself into the Microsoft deal to evade responsibility.

Bobby Kotick has become a very polarizing figure in gaming.

New York City is suing Activision Blizzard

Corresponding axiosthe lawsuit, a lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery, allows shareholders to demand companies open their books — and expose potential wrongdoing as a result.

Remarkably, they are trying to find out if Kotick knew about the alleged sexual misconduct at the company and to what extent.

“Given Kotick’s personal responsibility and liability for Activision’s broken workplace, the board should have realized that it was unable to negotiate a sale of the company,” the lawsuit reads.

This lawsuit is against Kotick: He said he rushed into Microsoft’s $95 offer because he would make so much money and that the board accepted an offer with 30 days after November’s WSJ report on internal operations . pic.twitter.com/UjO93Xtjrf

— CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) May 4, 2022

The lawsuit also states that Microsoft’s offer “undervalues” the company at $95/share, but Kotick would reap a large profit from the deal.

We’ll have to see what the future holds for the lawsuit and whether it will cause major problems for the company amid the Microsoft merger.