Riot Games Says Lawsuit Plaintiffs Waived Rights to Sue
By Wyatt Fossett ·
In a recent report from Kotaku, Riot Games looks to take sexual harassment lawsuit to private arbitration claiming employees "waived the right to sue" when they were hired.
After some lengthy conversations surrounding the toxicity and sexism within Riot Games in the fall of last year, the studio and their internal struggles have been pretty hush.
Reports of lawsuits by multiple plaintiffs became public in a large study published by video game and technology publication Kotaku in August. The original story detailed an ocean of complaints and reports of sexual harassment, sexism, and so much more.
The exposure of a grotesque work environment resulted in very little action to make things better. In fact, Riot Games has done little since then to change their internal atmosphere. One of the largest offenders, Scott Gelb, still remains as the studio’s COO after a small suspension. The latest news from the lawsuit only goes to bolster their defense of this internal environment.
This morning, in a report broken by Kotaku, news from Riot Games shows that the studio is making legal motions towards two of the women suing them into private arbitration. Whether more of these motions will be filed, is likely.
In these motions, Riot has made it clear that the plaintiffs in question waived their official rights to sue the company for discrimination, harassment, and more when they got hired. As part of their hiring contract, these stipulations against lawsuits are “clearly expressed” according to the documents acquired by Kotaku.
Companies covering themselves against potential damages is now new in the world of business, but luckily for these plaintiffs, their representation firmly believes that there is a precedence to remove this contractual waiving of rights to sue.
Ryan Saba of Rosen Saba, will continue pursuing a jury trial, regardless of hiring contracts.
“Today’s actions only serve to silence the voices of individuals who speak out against such misconduct and demonstrate that the company’s words were no more than lip service,” said Saba.
On the surface, this most recent action from Riot looks to contradict their public statements regarding the restructuring and attempts to build an inclusive culture.
“After spending time with Riot’s leadership and many others across the organization, it became clear that Riot is truly putting everything on the table and committing to evolving its culture.” wrote newly appointed Culture and Diversity Consultant Frances Frei back in September of 2018.
However, this recent move to protect themselves against plaintiffs doesn’t provide a whole lot of confidence in the direction they’re heading. It also acts to scare employees of Riot from considering legal action against the company in the future.
According to Riot, they are still shifting and evaluating their internal promotion and hiring practices in order to grow a more diverse studio culture. Back in February of this year, Riot Games announced the hiring of Angela Roseboro as their new Chief Diversity Officer.
We will continue to follow this story as more develops.