OpTic Gaming founder Hector “H3CZ” Rodriguez and Call of Duty legend Seth “Scump” Abner have had their $680 million lawsuit against Activision Blizzard dismissed by a U.S. court, putting the final decision in the hands of an arbitrator.
On March 13, official court documents confirmed all parties involved in the lawsuit agreed to move the case to arbitration, meaning an independent arbitrator will make the final decision on the dispute. “Plaintiffs dispute that their claims are subject to arbitration but have agreed to spare the expense of costly and lengthy litigation on judicial issues,” the documents confirmed.
Everything kicked off on March 1 when Scump and H3CZ filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard seeking nearly $700 million in damages for holding an “unlawful monopoly” over the Call of Duty League.
Key takeaways from the lawsuit include H3CZ alleging Activision forced him to give up 92.5 percent of OpTic’s ownership to Envy, made CDL teams sign new terms protecting from any claims made against them, and forced H3CZ to prove he had $3 million in capital to a $10 million line of credit. The lawsuit challenged the CDL’s exclusive streaming rights deal with YouTube, as Activision Blizzard allegedly granted exclusive broadcasting rights in exchange for concessions on Google cloud services that the CoD publisher uses for its video game platforms.
Esports legal reporter Nefi Lopez, one half of The Law of Esports podcast, explained what arbitration means for the future of this lawsuit via Jake Lucky on X (formerly Twitter) shortly after the news went public today. “Scump and H3CZ’s attorneys filed a stipulation to stay the case because the parties agreed to arbitrate the case,” Lopez said. “Specifically, they agreed to arbitrate the case to determine whether or not H3CZ and Scump’s issues should be arbitrated.”
If the arbitration moves forward, court documents confirm both parties agreed to the arbitrator making a binding decision, likely putting an end to the dispute. Lopez also added context to the events that led up to the lawsuit. Activision reportedly requested arbitration against H3CZ in October 2023 regarding threats he made, and then a second file for arbitration was allegedly requested against Scump a few months later. This all culminated with the lawsuit against Activision made back in February.
Scump and H3CZ haven’t made any public statements about the lawsuits, and both refused to talk about the ongoing legal dispute live on air during a CDL watch party. Dot Esports has reached out to H3CZ and Scump for comment but received no response at the time of publishing.
Published: Mar 13, 2024 07:51 pm