Activision tells regulators it will cooperate with insider trading investigation

[SAN FRANCISCO] Activision Blizzard, the video game maker set to be sold to Microsoft for nearly US$70 billion, said in a legal filing Friday (Apr 15) that it would cooperate with an investigation into whether some of the company's investors engaged in insider trading before the deal's announcement.

The company said it had received a request for information from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which enforces securities rules, and a grand jury subpoena from the Justice Department. The requests appeared to relate to investigations into whether investors who knew Bobby Kotick, Activision's chief executive, engaged in insider trading of Activision stock before the Microsoft deal was made public.

"Activision Blizzard has informed these authorities that it intends to be fully cooperative with these investigations," the company said in the filing.

The Wall Street Journal reported in March that 3 investors had made plans for large purchases of Activision stock just days before the announcement, netting them about US$60 million after the company's stock price jumped. The Journal reported that 1 of them had met with Kotick the week before the three men bought the stock. The filing did not name the investors.

Activision and the SEC did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The embattled gaming company, which produces titles like Call of Duty and Candy Crush, has been under fire since the summer, when a California employment agency sued it over allegations that it had a toxic, sexist workplace culture, leading to employee walkouts and the ousting of some executives. NY TIMES