According to Riot Games, the third-party investigation into CEO Nicolo Laurent found ‘no evidence’ of misconduct, and their own special committee recommends that no action be taken against him. The investigation was led by Riot Games after a lawsuit was filed against Laurent and the company in January, alleging that he harassed an employee and that Riot Games fired her when she complained. The lawsuit is pending.
The investigation into Laurent’s conduct was conducted by external law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP, who submitted their findings to a special committee of three people at Riot Games. The special committee, as reported by the Washington Post, consisted of Riot Games board member Youngme Moon and two male C-level executives of Riot Games owner Tencent.
Riot Games today released a statement from the special committee, claiming that they are “acting independently of management” and reviewing investigation results “with impartiality”. It is hard to believe these statements from any company, and the payment of a third party law firm does not change that. We also have no way of knowing what the Seyfarth Shaw investigation entails.
The legal complaint against Riot Games and Laurent was brought by former executive assistant Sharon O’Donnell, who was fired from her role at Riot Games in July 2020. As reported by Vice last month, the lawsuit alleges that Laurent O’Donnell asked to “come to his house while his wife was away”, asked her to travel with him outside of work and told her to be more feminine to be and behold her tone.
According to O’Donnell, she complained about Laurent’s behavior at Riot Games’ HR department, and that her termination was related to the complaints. Riot Games addressed this to Vice in a statement last month, saying: “The plaintiff was fired from the company more than seven months ago on the basis of several well-documented complaints from various people. Any other proposals are simply false.”
Today’s statement from the Riot Special Committee states that, after examining the results of the third party investigation, ‘it was concluded that there was no evidence that Laurent had harassed, discriminated or retaliated against the plaintiff’ and ‘No action should be taken against Laurent.’
Riot also published a short letter along with a statement from Laurent himself, both of which are available at the same link. Laurent, who continued in the role of CEO while being investigated, notes in his statement that the company is ‘investigating legal options’. The same day, Riot filed a motion in the Los Angeles High Court asking him to expedite the court proceedings and move the case to arbitration.
Aside from the obvious problems of examining ourselves impartially – even if you hire an outside company, Riot has no credibility in this matter due to earlier allegations of sexism in the workplace, first mentioned in a comprehensive 2018 report by Kotaku has been set out. They are even now involved in legal action over the issue. In 2019, Riot Games staff walked out of their Los Angeles studio in protest of the use of ‘forced arbitration’ to resolve sexual harassment claims. Earlier this week, Alienware canceled a League Of Legends sponsorship deal ten months earlier, with anonymous sources telling Dot Esports that Alienware had expressed concern about the company’s public image.