On February 3, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced charges against Activision Blizzard Inc., a video game development and publishing company. The SEC charged Activision with, among other things, violating the agency’s whistleblower protection rules. Activision agreed to pay $35 million to settle the charges.
According to the SEC, “between 2016 and 2021, Activision Blizzard executed separation agreements in the ordinary course of its business that violated a Commission whistleblower protection rule by requiring former employees to provide notice to the company if they received a request for information from the Commission’s staff.”
SEC Whistleblower Program rule Rule 21F-17 states that “No person may take any action to impede an individual from communicating directly with the Commission staff about a possible securities law violation, including enforcing, or threatening to enforce, a confidentiality agreement… with respect to such communications.”
The SEC’s order further clarifies that Activision’s separation agreements undermined the purpose of Rule 21F-17 despite containing language which stated “‘Nothing in this Release prevents me from . . . giving truthful testimony, or truthfully responding to a valid subpoena, or communicating or filing a charge with government or regulatory entities (such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, National Labor Relations Board, Department of Labor, or Securities and Exchange Commission.)’”
“Taking...
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