Riot Games’ investigation into CEO Nicolo Laurent following a lawsuit against the League of Legends a committee of the company’s board said Tuesday.
A special committee of the board said he ‘concluded that there was no evidence that Laurent Sharon O’Donnell, a former executive assistant, who according to Laurent did do such things, harassed, discriminated or retaliated do not have. The committee, made up of members of Riot, who are not co-founders of the company, hired an outside law firm to investigate the matter. The firm and the committee reported the results in the statement on the company’s website.
“This is not a recommendation we take lightly,” the board committee said. ‘In cases where high-ranking executives are involved, we realize that power dynamics can often lead to behaviors and prejudices that contaminate the experiences of others within the organization in toxic ways. Moreover, in many such cases it can be difficult to come to a conclusion about these kinds of allegations. ”
According to the firm’s report, this was not the case with the allegations against Laurent. In mid-January, O’Donnell filed a lawsuit against Riot and Laurent in the Los Angeles High Court, alleging that Laurent introduced her, asked her to travel with him and leave his home. Riot’s Human Resources Division.
The O’Donnell lawsuit, which comes shortly after a much-publicized investigative report on Riot’s workplace culture and treatment of women and a class action lawsuit that followed, prompted the board to both convene a special investigation and then to publicly discuss his findings, the board said.
The committee said that “should additional material evidence of Laurent’s misconduct come to light, we would request that Riot reopen the investigation without hesitation and without prejudice.”
A Riot Games spokesman referred Polygon readers to the company’s statements on its website. O’Donnell’s attorney declined to comment further on their case.
On Riot’s website, Laurent said O’Donnell’s allegations of harassment, discrimination and retaliation involving me were not true. Nothing of the sort, or even close to it, ever happened. ”
“I can say with certainty that if the allegations were true, the Special Committee would have recommended my termination, and the board would have dismissed me,” Laurent wrote.
In turn, Riot Games called the Laurent investigation ‘strict’ and noted that ‘we separated from senior leaders when we endorsed inappropriate or discriminatory behavior. […] We were completely willing to do it again. ”
In a somewhat related additional development, The Esports Observer reported Monday that Dell’s subsidiary Alienware terminated a sponsorship deal with Riot Games one year before the deal would expire. The Observer’s report quoted an unnamed source as saying that Alienware’s departure was due to “concerns about the game developer’s public image amid harassment and other controversy.”
A Riot Games spokesman told Polygon that the company did not want to comment on its agreement with Alienware, which began in 2019. But, “if we continue the discussions with them, we have removed their trademark from our broadcasts,” the spokesman said.
Polygon contacted a representative of Alienware for further comment.
Update (21:41 hours): In an email, an Alienware spokesman confirmed that the brand was no longer a sponsor of Riot Games, but declined to comment further.
“It is true that Dell is no longer a sponsor of Riot Games,” the spokesman said. “We are unable to comment at this time as Dell does not discuss the details of any partnerships.”