shareholder proposal (14a-8) · 2022
Office of the New York State Comptroller and the New York State Common Retirement Fund at Activision Blizzard, Inc.
The proposal asked Activision Blizzard to publish an annual public report on the effectiveness of its efforts to reduce workplace discrimination, harassment, and abuse, including settlement figures and pending case data.
What happened
Result: Approved at the June 21, 2022 annual meeting against the board's unanimous recommendation to vote no. The certified count was 379,308,934 votes for and 183,876,515 against, with 35,277,508 abstentions and 49,424,806 broker non-votes, which is 67.4 percent of the votes cast for and against. The proxy advisers Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services both recommended it.
Activision Blizzard said it would carefully consider the proposal in enhancing its future disclosures, and published its first annual Transparency Report in 2023, filing it with the SEC. The report says the Investigations Unit substantiated 36 reported concerns of harassment, discrimination or retaliation across all business units during 2022, involving 37 respondents and 39 corrective actions; its employee-only lines are 29 substantiated out of 114 investigated. The report does not refer to the shareholder proposal.
Activision Blizzard shareholders approve proposal for report on abuse and harassment, CNBC
What this campaign is about
- Protect labor rights and safe working environments Pivotal · UN Sustainable Development Goals
- Companies adopt sustainable practices and reporting Pivotal · UN Sustainable Development Goals
- Equal opportunity; end discriminatory practices Necessary · UN Sustainable Development Goals
- Acts ethically at the leadership level Pivotal · JUST Capital
- Social Equity Necessary · Doughnut Economics
- Income and Work Necessary · Doughnut Economics