Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s Activision Blizzard will pay around US$55 million to settle a gender and discrimination lawsuit from 2021.
California’s civil rights department sued the company for discriminating against women by denying them promotion opportunities and failing to pay them equally to men.
Around US$45 million of the payment will be given as financial support to women who worked at the company between October 2015 and December 2020, subject to approval from the courts, the department said.
Additional steps will be taken by the video game developer to eradicate these issues from the workplace, including hiring an independent consultant to scrutinise its payment and promotion policies.
“We are dedicated to fully implementing all the new obligations we have assumed as part of [the settlement]. We want our employees to know that, as the agreement specifies, we are committed to ensuring fair compensation and promotion policies and practices for all our employees,” Activision said in a statement.
The Call of Duty creator was finally bought by Microsoft in October for US$69 billion after a lengthy anti-competition review delayed the sale by over a year.