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Activision Blizzard delays CEO pay vote

Activision Blizzard delays CEO pay vote

US publishing giant Activision Blizzard has pushed back its 'Say-on-Pay' vote which would determine the compensation of its CEO Robert Kotick.

That's going by a filing with the SEC – as spotted by Bloomberg – in which the company delayed the vote by seven days until June 21st. This is, in part, due to Activision Blizzard claiming there are "misleading" claims about how Kotick is compensated out in the wild. That's likely a reference to statements from CtW Investment Group, which has repeatedly criticised Activision Blizzard for its CEO's pay.

Last year, CtW said that the company had "unnecessarily enriched" Kotick, before reiterating its concerns earlier in June. This time around, the investment group said that though Kotick's pay and bonuses have been cut by 50 per cent, because of other bonuses it actually doesn't make a difference.

Activision Blizzard has said that it has not received low support for its Say-on-Pay proposals, citing the 82 per cent and 92 per cent of shareholders that backed the scheme in 2019 and 2018. Of course, in 2020, the company received just 57 per cent support from its shareholders on Say-on-Pay.

CtW has also criticised Electronic Arts for its exec pay; as a result, shareholders voted down the company's Say-on-Pay proposal last year.


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PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.