This
and this
Many people settle out of court and its not a guilty verdict nor an admission of guilt.
Many companies do this because its cheaper then the cost of fighting it in court.
However I don’t think it will be 18 million more like a couple, FYI.
You also gotta look at that the state/Government accepted the deal as well and that could very well mean they don’t have enough evidence to push it further.
Except Kotick isn’t the one paying that settlement.
It’s nice being able to buy innocence 
it ended like we all thought it would. corporation has to pay a fine that is basically just a parking ticket for a normal person and nobody gets serious consequences for their actions. gotta love the justice system.
No, but that’s what it is equal to.
Just a cost of doing business.
Or… we could say thats some nice paychecks for several departments stocked with quality employees instead of hacks and underpaid/over worked intern level employees.
Blizzard and amount a million other big companies.
At the end of the day one is innocent until proven guilty. I get what you mean, they’re paying out rather than going to court, but… that still requires us to assume innocent because guilt hasn’t been proven.
Do I think they’re guilty? Sure. However I recognize that I think people are guilty, and the company is saying that the whole company is not guilty. So it sort of works. I think some people are guilty, and they might be, but I can’t guarantee that the whole company is guilty and… well… they’ve decided to compensate anyone who feels they’ve been done dirty.
That does sound a bit… fishy… but it doesn’t’ prove anything. Ergo, I can only say that some people seem almost-definitely-guilty, but I can’t say much about the organization except that they didn’t want to deal with it.
An out of court settlement doesn’t mean they are saying ‘we did the bad thing’ more they are saying “This is cheaper than taking it into the court system for a few years and paying our lawyers/attorneys for this, dealing with the court costs, and also dealing with the media frenzy that will never stop during this time frame as a result of the court case”
Oh I was just being a smart butt. Haha, good write up nonetheless. 
Rich people never have to face consequences… fines and monetary compensations mean nothing when these people hoard exorbitant amounts of wealth… why do you think these people stay in power?
The working class needs to revolt and take what they’ve earned.
operating costs are not factored in. wow doesnt run for free.
That’s the best you have? Ok, I counter your “operating costs” with revenues from merch, novels/comics, movies, Blizzcon, etc.
Point stands. $18m USD is meaningless.
Technically this is a settlement for the EEOC lawsuit that was brought forth on the 27th of September. The EEOC suited after 3 years of investigation.
Court documents can be found here -
The larger lawsuit involving the DFEH has not been settled. The shareholder lawsuit has yet to be certified AFAIK
This will probably be settled though.
theyd rather create a slush fund for victims then drag this out and pay out even more. or worse(in their eyes) the workers unionize. the SEC investigation wont lead to anything either
When one of your cell phone games is gonna bring in 1 Billion in a year…buying your way out is easy.
Not as fast as this one.
The EEOC lawsuit was settled within a day or so.
Meanwhile DFEH has barely had the first salvos from Paul Hasting LLP , ATVI’s counsel on the case. It’s still waiting on a coming case management conference in December.
This is the answer.
The legal fees that pile up from fighting something will almost always cost me than just settling it.
It’s why so many cases from multi-million dollar companies just get settled, even if they’re petty suits.
Often times, the only times they DON’T settle are when it’s quite obviously a very cut and dry case that will be over quickly by being dismissed by a judge.
The only other times they don’t settle is in cases like the McDonald’s coffee case, in which settling WAS an admission of guilt, because the settlement was for hospital bills (AKA Why would a non-guilty party pay for the hospital bills?). Unlike in this case, where a settlement is just to end the case.