Riot Games, the publisher of League of Legends, announced on Monday that it is willing to pay $100 million to settle a class-action lawsuit based on gender discrimination in 2018. The company will pay 80 million U.S. dollars to the members of the class-action lawsuit and approximately 20 million U.S. dollars in legal fees for the plaintiff.
This class action was filed in November 2018 by former employees of the company, Melanie McCracken and Jess Negrón, alleging gender discrimination and sexual harassment and misconduct at Riot Games behavior. After the lawsuit, California government agencies led two investigations.
The lawsuit occurred after the game news website Kotaku published an article about Riot Games’ sexist culture, in which female employees were asked to become core players and League of Legends players during job interviews. In the article, the women stated that during the recruitment process, they were rejected because they did not fully meet these criteria.
Plaintiff’s lawyer, employment and sexual harassment lawyer Genie Harrison said: For women at Riot Games – and for all women in video games and technology companies, this is a great day. They deserve a no-harassment. And discriminatory workplaces. We appreciate Riot’s introspection and work to become a more diverse and inclusive company since 2018.
Riot agreed to settle the lawsuit for $10 million in 2019, but the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) intervened to block the agreement with a court document. The agency believes that the victim should be entitled to as much as 400 million U.S. dollars. DFEH issued a press release on Monday night acknowledging the settlement.
The new solution was reached with DFEH, the California Department of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) and certain individual claimants. All current and former California employees and contractors who have worked at Riot from November 2014 to the present are eligible for compensation. At least 2,300 workers are eligible for compensation, and those who started work earlier or worked longer hours in the company will receive more funding allocations. Riot will pay a settlement fund and distribute it to claimants after the court approves it.
In an email sent to Riot Games employees on Monday night, five executives of the company discussed the settlement. The email wrote: We want to admit that the timing of this announcement is not ideal. The final details of the agreement will soon be formed, and we hope you can hear this news directly from us, rather than from the news during the break. See this news.