Blizzard faces antitrust lawsuit against the US Justice Dept. over esports wages
Activision Blizzard is facing a lawsuit, and this time, it's one unrelated to either the Microsoft acquisition, or misconduct against employees. This time around, the United States Justice Department is suing Blizzard over its "Competitive Balance Tax", which allegedly has unfairly suppressed the wages of esports players. According to the lawsuit, "This conduct had the purpose and effect of limiting competition between the teams in each league for esports players and suppressed esports players’ wages. This conduct violates Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1".
The legal document specifies the competitive Call of Duty and Overwatch leagues, specifically, with the plaintiff demanding that the upper limits on player compensation and penalties for exceeding certain amounts of income be removed from Activision Blizzard's contracts for their esports leagues.
The United States requests that this Court: a. adjudge that Activision’s agreements with teams in the Overwatch and Call of Duty Leagues to implement the Competitive Balance Tax rules are unlawful under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1; b. permanently enjoin and restrain Activision from agreeing to or enforcing any rule that would, directly or indirectly, impose an upper limit on compensation for any player or players in any professional esports league that Activision owns or controls, including any rule that requires or incentivizes any team to impose an upper limit on its players’ compensation or imposes a tax, fine, or other penalty on any team as a result of exceeding a certain amount of compensation for its players, and requiring Activision to take such internal measures as are necessary to ensure compliance with that injunction; and c. award the United States such other relief as the Court may deem just and proper to redress and prevent recurrence of the alleged violations and to remedy the anticompetitive effects of the illegal agreements entered into by Activision.
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