A class action lawsuit [filed today](https: //ecf. cacd.uscourts. gov/doc1/031136037480) in the U.S. District Court of Central California on behalf of investors alleges that Activision Blizzard’s intentional failure to disclose [its ongoing problems with sexual harassment and discrimination](https:// kotaku. com/everything-that-has-happened-since-the-activision-blizz-1847401161) artificially inflated the company’s stock value. In layman’s terms, if investors had known the extent of Activision Blizzard’s issues, they wouldn’t have invested in its stock.
The moment any corporation has a sudden dip in the stocks, there is always at least one investment group that cries foul and tries filing suit for violations of fiduciary duty… and they typically fail since market crashes aren’t exactly something you can always control for.
VW was successfully sued because they actually made fraudulent statements that related to their investments and financials… but others like Raytheon getting investigated by the DoJ and similar always stir up news but rarely turn into anything interesting.
Depends on the timing of these removals and changes at Blizzard and the other lawsuits. If the allegations are true and developers were playing CoD while partying then they may have a case? They have reporters that read our forums to give them updates as to why the company is performing badly?
Not… really no. Fiduciary duties are very high bars to clear to ensure you’re doing your due diligence, but there are also pretty clear demarcations between what is and isn’t part of a fiduciary duty. No halfway measures or almost-a-duty will fly.
The best argument the investors can make is that California was investigating allegations of pay disparity and workplace problems and they weren’t informed of this investigation. However, being investigated and knowing you’re being investigated are two very different things, and the first time California and Blizzard had any sit-downs according to California was early July, 2 weeks before they filed the suit.
Blizzard can stick to their original statement position rather easily: that California rushed the investigation in the 11th hour, slammed three back-to-back conferences in the 2 weeks prior to California’s filing deadline, came up with no amenable compromises or even anything close to resembling a deal, and sprung a lawsuit out of the blue.
The key things are going to be:
What is the knowledge investors needed to know about, explicitly defined
When did Blizzard have this knowledge
How quickly did Blizzard have a duty to reveal this knowledge to investors
Even if Blizzard loses both lawsuits, it’s going to be a slow descent. They’ll most likely release any games they’ve been working on, because ol’ Bobby’s not the type to just let all that hard work go to waste before getting to fire everyone.
No this is to bait you into exiting your positions… Nobody cares about some toxic culture this and that - they are a multi-billion dollar company that will continue to pump profits regardless
