Riot Games has agreed to a pay out a minimum of $10 million in a settlement of a gender discrimination class-action lawsuit, according to the LA Times. The settlement still has to be approved by the court.
Those in the class-action lawsuit will get an amount of money based on “their tenure, length and status,” as an employee. The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Ryan Saba, said that the settlement’s overall amount was partly determined by the existing gulf in salary between women and men at Riot, according to Kotaku.
The lawsuit arose out of allegations last year (from an exposé by Kotaku) of sexist treatment of female employees and a toxic, misogynistic workplace culture. This led to lawsuits, which sparked an attempt by Riot to change the company’s workplace culture.
However, this wasn’t without controversy, as employees walked out when it was discovered that Riot was trying to change its sexual harassment and assault policies to force disputes into private arbitration instead of the court system. Riot later amended the policy so that only new employees could take the company to court.
Despite the settlement and Riot’s reaction to these events, changing the company remains a work in progress. One current employee told Kotaku that Riot’s “rhetoric about ‘healing and moving on’ leaves something to be desired,” since the company continues to employ senior male employees named in the lawsuit in the first place.
[Sources: LA Times, Kotaku (1), (2)]
