Department of Employment and Housing of the State of California has accused Governor, Gavin Newsom, to interfere in the investigation against Activision Blizzard , favoring the company. According to a report published in Bloomberg, the case of the DFEH has suffered a reverse by losing two of his main investigators; The first, the lawyer Janette Wipper, has been dismissed by the Governor, while the second, her assistant her Melanie Proctor, has left her harbor voluntarily as protest for her dismissal.
«The Governor’s office has repeatedly asked to have knowledge in advance of the progress in the litigation strategy and in the following steps», we can read in an email sent by Proctor to her colleagues at the beginning of this week, “As we have been winning In the state court, interference [from the governor] have grown, attending to the interests of the Activision Defense. ” In this message, Proctor accuses Newsom to dismiss Wipper in an improper way upon refusing to provide the required information. The lawyer, for the part of it, has ensured being investigating the appropriate legal channel to file a claim under the California Complainant Protection Law. So far, the trial of the case is still foreseen for February 2023.
The DFEH’s research against the Californian company is focused on gender discrimination and sexual and labor abuse as several, fixed and temporary workers, say they have suffered during their stay in the company. “Women were assigned to positions of less responsibility and worse paid in favor of male peers, with less experience and preparation, who were friends of men in power positions,” we can read in an excerpt from the demand dedicated to the testimonies. However, this is not the only demand faced by the company. Although a few weeks ago it reached an agreement in the case by discrimination opened by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, the federal investigation carried out by the Board and Values Commission is still pending.