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Disco Elysium maker ZA/UM resolves legal issues with producer Kender

Disco Elysium maker ZA/UM resolves legal issues with producer Kender

Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM has resolved its legal disagreements with former producer Kaur Kender.

The ex-member of staff has divested all of his shares within the developer, in addition to paying back his debts to the company. That's on top of obeying a court order to compensate ZA/UM CEO Ilmar Kompus for his legal costs owing to the lawsuit that Kender filed and then withdrew.

“I am thankful for the years of trust and cooperation with the team, which made Disco Elysium a successful project,” said Kender.

“After leaving my full-time role, I filed a lawsuit which I realised, after seeing the facts, was misguided. For the betterment of the team, I am leaving my roles as a shareholder and an employee at the company, and I wish the whole ZA/UM team new creative victories!”

Kompus added: “As this transaction shows, open discussions are the best way to clear up misunderstandings and differences, especially when it’s for the benefit of the team. We’ve approached this with the collective interest of ZA/UM and our incredible team in mind, and we are glad to have reached a full resolution. We are grateful for Kaur’s contributions, including bringing together forces across art, writing, and music to create Disco Elysium, and his work to ensure the game’s ongoing success. I wish Kaur well in his future endeavours.”

Kender was one of a few high-level former members of staff who accused Kompus and ex-executive producer Tõnis Haavel of buying a majority stake in ZA/UM illegitimately.


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.