Riot Games to pay $10 million to settle gender discrimination lawsuit

Riot Games has agreed to pay at least $10 million to settle a class action lawsuit over alleged gender discrimination.

Court documents filed this week reveal approximately 1,000 women who worked at the League of Legends maker from November 2014 are entitled to a share of the total.

How much they receive will vary based on their length of service and employment status, while full-time staff will get more than contractors, the LA Times reports.

The suit was launched in November 2018 when two former employees alleged that they were subjected to sexual harassment and gender discrimination.

Kotaku published a detailed investigation into Riot’s allegedly toxic workplace culture last year, leading to a public apology from the company and a commitment to change its cultural DNA.

The plaintiffs and Riot agreed to the proposed settlement in August, but it’s only this week that the finer details have emerged, and the agreement still requires court approval.

Hundreds of Riot Games staff staged a walkout at the publisher’s Los Angeles headquarters in May in protest of the company’s forced arbitration policies, which prevent some employees from taking sexual harassment and assault claims to court.

Riot has said it will amend its mandatory arbitration policy, but that changes won’t come into effect until after current litigation is resolved. And the company has only committed to offering the revised policy to new employees as it says current staff waived the right to sue when they were hired.