Activision Blizzard is feeling particularly litigious today, as the company filed a lawsuit against Netflix for hunting down company talent in 2018. To recap quickly, former Activision Blizzard CFO Spencer Neumann was fired from the company two years ago for an undisclosed reason. In January 2019, Netflix picked him up quickly and it appears the reason for his departure was likely due to negotiations with the streaming giant.
“Netflix unapologetically recruits talent without regard to its ethical and legal obligations,” stated the lawsuit that was filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court. “To tailor its workforce to its wishes, Netflix not only ruthlessly fires its own employees it deems ‘suitable’, but engages in a years-long campaign of illegally hunting executives from Netflix’s competitors, regardless of its contractual obligations” .
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For their part, Netflix lawyers have responded by stating that nothing the company has done is unethical. He believes in “freedom” for his employees from the “Hollywood establishment,” something Activision Blizzard attorneys are not buying. “Netflix’s illegal conduct is neither groundbreaking nor groundbreaking; it just reflects Netflix’s disregard for California state law, ”attorneys O’Melveny and Myers said on behalf of the video game giant.
What makes matters worse is that this is not the first time Netflix has been sued for talent theft. About 10 months after Neumann started working for the company, an ongoing legal battle between Netflix and 20th Century Fox (which was before the Disney acquisition) was resolved in Fox’s favor. At the time, the courts ruled that Netflix could not hire additional staff from Fox or Disney. However, Fox did not receive any monetary value.
At present, it is difficult to say exactly where this case will go. The crux of Netflix’s argument does not appear to have any foundation in a legal sense. If you voluntarily forced Neumann to break a contract he signed with Activision Blizzard, then the company is at fault. It should be relatively straightforward, although procedures are likely to take many years to reach a critical point. Both companies are richer than God and can endure a long legal battle.
Source: Deadline
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