After last week’s surprising split between Activision and Bungie, Activision has come under investigation for securities fraud.
In an alert to shareholders, The Pomerantz LLP, a law firm that describes itself as the “one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securites, and antitrust class lititgation,” issued a press release indicating they are investigating Activision.
The press release published by Market Watch, indicates the investigation “concerns whether Activision and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices.”
The press release urges Activision Blizzard, Inc investors to join a class action lawsuit following the announcement that Bungie would separate from Activision and begin publishing the popular Destiny series on their own.
“Following this announcement, Activision’s stock price fell sharply during intraday trading on January 11, 2019.”
It seems that whatever is going on with the Triple-A publisher, it was enough to not only have someone request Pomerantz LLP to step in to investigate but for the firm to accept the investigation and launch a class action suit.
This doesn’t bold well for Activision which looks to have a light year when it comes to releases.
The company ended on a down note last year with the announcement of Diablo: Immortal, which saw many Diablo players lament a mobile release.
Activision also lot a number of Chief Financial Officers within the first week of 2019. Activision Blizzard CFO Spencer Neumann left the company to become the CFO of Netflix. Blizzard CFO Amrita Ahuja left to join the mobile payment company Square as its CFO.
The company was also accused of “racial abuse and discrimination” from a former employee who worked on the Blizzard Esports Team supporting Hearthstone and the Hearthstone Championship Tour.
What do you make of the lawsuit against Blizzard? Do you think it has anything to do with the CFOs departing? Do you think Activision can recover from what looks like a series of mishaps?