Riot Games Forces Gender Discrimination Suit to Arbitration

A class action suit against Riot Games Inc, the California based company behind the popular video game “League of Legends”, was dealt a major blow this January after Riot sought individual arbitration.

The suit against Riot began in 2018, after an expose by Kotaku.com detailed allegations of a sexist company work culture. In the article, several former and current employees came forward to detail a “men-first” “bro culture” they say dominates within the company. The article made numerous allegations of unequal pay for female employees, failure to promote women within the organization as well as outright retaliation against sexual harassment claims. Following the publication of Kotaku’s exposé, two women who worked for the game developer filed a class action lawsuit against Riot, alleging that they were regularly subjected to sexual harassment and gender discrimination. 

 In August of 2019, a proposed settlement was agreed upon which would have paid out $10 million to women who worked for the company. However upon announcement of the proposed settlement, two California regulatory agencies, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing and the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, filed complaints urging the court to reject the proposed settlement. The DFEH had estimated that the settlement could have been worth as much as $400 million, and alleged that Riot colluded with the class’ lawyers to reduce the settlement number. Riot Denied these allegations, but in February 2020 the class withdrew the proposed $10 million settlement and hired new legal counsel. 

Negotiations over the settlement continued until January of this year when Riot motioned to force members of the class action suit into individual arbitration. The company cited arbitration clauses in the women’s contracts, in which they waived their right to sue the company. While the plaintiffs attorneys criticized the move, on January 25 Riot’s motion was granted and the arbitration clauses were upheld. 

The decision is a major blow for the class action suit against Riot. Rather than negotiating as a group, all members of the class will now need to individually file for arbitration and have their claims settled out of court by a neutral arbitrator. This will likely work against the plaintiffs, as settling disputes between employer and employee through arbitration often results in a less favorable ruling for employees. 

Although arbitration is certainly a win for Riot, there is a silver lining for the plaintiffs. Unlike some arbitration agreements, Riot’s does not include a confidentiality agreement. This means Riot employees who agree to arbitration will still be free to speak about their suit against Riot the same way they could in court. Arbitration won’t allow Riot to buy its employees’ silence,  and the company will need to address the allegations about their sexist work culture and hold themselves accountable.