Investigation Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing By Riot Games CEO

An investigation commissioned by League of Legends and Valorant publisher Riot Games amid accusations of misconduct by CEO Nicolas Laurent has concluded, finding no evidence of wrongdoing and recommending no sanctions.

Washington Post reports that the news was shared internally to Riot employees along with a statement from Laurent, stating unequivocally that the accusations are not true. "Nothing of that nature, or even remotely close to it, ever happened."

The findings were announced the same day that Riot Games filed a request to speed up court proceedings in the pending suit filed by a former executive assistant, Sharon O'Donnell. Riot has filed an application to the Los Angeles County Superior Court to set a status conference to discuss how the case should proceed.

O'Donnell had alleged unwanted sexual advances and harassment, including conditioning her continued employment on reciprocation of those advances. The filing from Riot's lawyers deny this, and cite the "years' worth of emails and texts" investigated by the third-party as lacking any evidence of her specific accusations.

O'Donnell's legal team has issued a response, stating that the paperwork filed by Riot's lawyers is untrue and promising to file its own response with the court soon.

The special committee consisted of three members as part of Riot's board of directors. The only publicly named member was Youngme Moon, a professor at Harvard Business School. The other two are unnamed executives at Riot Games owner Tencent.

"We concluded that there was no evidence that Laurent harassed, discriminated, or retaliated against the plaintiff," read a statement from the panel. "We have therefore reached the conclusion that, at the current time … no action should be taken against Laurent."

The committee went on to state that it recognizes that power dynamics can impact these business relationships in ways that are difficult to assess, but "in this case, we were simply unable to find any evidence that would justify a sanction of any kind against Laurent."

This comes just after Alienware terminated its sponsorship contract with League of Legends, reportedly citing issues with the company's public image due to the harassment allegations.