Bobby Kotick alleges a lawsuit against Microsoft’s Activision acquisition was secretly aimed at helping Embracer Group

Former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has alleged that an ongoing lawsuit objecting to Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard was secretly designed to help rival publisher Embracer Group.

As reported by Game File, the lawsuit was filed back in 2022 by a Swedish pension fund called Sjunde AP-Fonden, also known as AP7, and alleged that Kotick rushed the sale of Activision Blizzard to Microsoft so he could avoid the consequences of the sexual misconduct claims at the time.

In a recently filed ‘answer’ to the lawsuit, Kotick and his lawyers not only denied the claim, but has made a counterclaim that AP7 had ulterior motives in filing the suit, including “to exert collateral harm on Activision” and to help Embracer.

“This Delaware lawsuit was apparently aimed to help pave the way for Embracer to increase its foothold in the California market at the expense of Activision, making it more difficult for Activision to recruit talent and expand through [merges and acquisitions] activity of the sort that Activision relied on to grow historically,” Kotick and his legal team claimed.

Kotick claims that because AP7’s view chairman Emma Ihre was an executive at Embracer at the time of the lawsuit’s filing, he believes the lawsuit was filed to mount a “collateral attack on Activision [that] also appears to be tied to Embracer’s desire to boost sales of its games while leaving Activision hamstrung in the development of its own games that competed against Embracer’s titles”.

In a statement to Game File, Embracer has denied Kotick’s allegations, saying it didn’t have to rely on a lawsuit to compete with Activision.

“We are humbled of Mr Kotick’s remark that we were competing with Activision on this level,” an Embracer Group representative told the publication.

“Nevertheless, perhaps difficult to accept for Mr Kotick, but we did not and do not need any help from a Swedish pension fund in competing with Activision.

“Thus, in short, there were no coordination or collaboration between Embracer and AP7 relating to any of Mr. Kotick’s statements. No agenda or instructions were directed from Embracer via Emma Ihre or directly to AP7.”