Activision Blizzard blames Microsoft for breaking the law in the deal

With the acquisition by Microsoft, Activision Blizzard should have a better corporate culture, but the company is currently still sticking to old patterns. The deal is responsible for failing to meet the women’s quota prescribed by law — an obvious excuse.

Activision Blizzard is not to blame

It’s quite a brutal “apology” that Activision Blizzard is currently making to the authorities in California. California law required the company to have at least three women on its board of directors by the end of 2021. how Axios reported, Activision Blizzard admitted in its 2021 annual report that it had failed to comply with relevant California regulations and that only two women remain on its board.

The official reason for this failure: complications caused by the Microsoft acquisition. In the past year, they’ve started “interviewing potential additional female directors”. “As the company’s current directors would no longer serve on the board of directors after the completion of the proposed transaction with Microsoft, we were unable to complete the process in 2021,” the company said.

Bit Flimsy

In principle, this explanation sounds a bit flimsy, but on closer inspection of the underlying scheme, the explanation can clearly be described as an attempt to justify own misconduct in the past with an event that did not coincide with the timing.

The law has been in force since January 2019, which prescribes compliance with the quota of women on boards of directors. This gave the company three years to comply with the regulations. In its statement, Activision Blizzard doesn’t really bother to justify its inability to comply with the regulation. According to all information known so far, the acquisition talks with Microsoft started in the second half of 2021 – long after the law was passed and the group was aware of it. It is unknown at this time how the California authorities will respond.