New Lawsuit: Activision Sues Netflix For Poaching Its Personnel!

Activision has filed a lawsuit against Netflix on the grounds that the latter poached talent from the gaming studio back in 2018.

To quickly recap what happened, Activision Blizzard fired its CFO Spencer Neumann from the company in 2018 for reasons yet to be known. Afterward, Netflix hired the guy in January of 2019, and according to a few sources, Neumann’s departure from Activision may have been related to some negotiations with the streaming colossus.

Coming to the Lawsuit, it states that “Netflix unapologetically recruits talent without regard to its ethical and legal obligations.” 

“To shape its workforce to its desires, Netflix not only ruthlessly fires its own employees that it deems ‘adequate,’ but is engaged in a years-long campaign of unlawfully poaching executives from Netflix’s competitors regardless of their contractual obligations.”

Of course, Netflix fired back by stating that it has not done anything that can be alleged as unethical and all it does is believe in the freedom of employees. 

To spice it all further, Activision’s attorneys clapped back by saying, “Netflix’s unlawful conduct is not trailblazing or innovative – it is just reflective of Netflix’s contempt for the law of the State of California.”

Whatever the case may be, Netflix may be on the losing side here, seeing as how it lost a similar lawsuit to 20th Century Fox for stealing the company’s human resources.

That case settled in favor of Fox, with Netflix being basically banned from taking any more personnel from the company. That said, it may just be the case here as well, if Neumann was, say, coerced into joining the company.

Many have also speculated that this is nothing more than a marketing stunt to bring Activision Blizzard into the limelight, but the company’s true intentions for filing a lawsuit over something that happened two years ago are still unknown. Nonetheless, the direction this case will take is undoubtedly an intriguing thing to look out for!