California court denies Activision Blizzard’s efforts to delay bias suit

Update October 24th, 10:10 CT: An earlier version of the article incorrectly stated that Blizzard sought to delay the case in order to continue their own internal bias investigation. The text has since been updated.

There has been continuous legal action taken against Activision Blizzard since it was made public that the company was accused of gender discrimination and for having a “frat boy” mentality. The company was hit by multiple lawsuits, including one from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) from July. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would later then hit the company with a subpoena.

The company tried to convince the California court systems to pause the DFEH case against them to give the company time to investigate ethics allegations against the agency. They reportedly sought to disqualify specific attorneys. Bloomberg reports that Activision failed to convince any court in the state to halt the sexual harassment and discrimination case filed by DFEH.

In September, it was revealed to the public that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was also suing Activision Blizzard for allegations of harassment towards female employees and gender discrimination. That lawsuit was seemingly put to rest when Activision Blizzard and the EEOC came to an agreement. The agreement was that the company will use $18 million in funds for worker compensation and give the rest to non-profit organizations that further advance women in video games.

However, the DFEH intervened in the agreement. The DFEH claims that “it wants to avoid irreparable harm to the interests of the DFEH’s state court claims.” Activision Blizzard and the EEOC requested the federal court to block the DFEH’s attempts to intervene in the case.