Gearbox currently dealing with two lawsuits involving their CEO and former company attorney. Mostly regarding allegations of skimming money from the company and illegal contract breaches but also one really damaging allegation assuming its true.
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Originally Posted by Destuctoid
There's going to be some messy litigation in Texas. Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford and former Gearbox in-house attorney Wade Callender are suing each other in two separate actions, both alleging that the other has breached their legal obligations to the company.
As discovered by Kotaku, Gearbox originally filed a lawsuit against Callender in November 2018 for misusing company funds. It's said that Callender borrowed money from the company for a home loan and tuition that wasn't fully paid back. Further, Callender is accused of abusing a Gearbox company credit card for personal expenses such as "family vacations, gun club memberships and firearms accessories, and trying to get six-pack abs."
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Originally Posted by Destructoid
Callender then sued both Pitchford and Gearbox in December 2018, possibly in retaliation to Gearbox's lawsuit ... The crux of the lawsuit is that Callender says Pitchford took a secretive $12 million bonus from Take-Two Interactive in 2016 that was funneled into Pitchford Entertainment Media Magic, LLC. According to Callender, that money should have rightfully been paid out to Gearbox employees and to help fund the development of the next Borderlands game.
However, things take a dark twist. Callender also states that Pitchford accidentally forgot a USB drive at a Dallas-area Medieval Times restaurant in 2014. Callender alleges that the USB drive contained both highly-sensitive business documents and "underage pornography." Pitchford was supposedly in San Francisco at the time the drive was recovered, and Callender -- without yet knowing the contents of the drive -- directed Gearbox staff to duplicate the files so they could be sent to Pitchford. Pitchford allegedly intervened and ordered the duplicate files to be immediately destroyed. Callender goes on to also accuse Pitchford of using Gearbox company funds to throw personal parties at his house where older men would expose themselves to minors.
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Making things a bit more interesting is the voice actor for Claptrap from the Borderlands series recently went public about the allegations but kept it ambiguous enough on which allegations were true or if they all are.
https://www.destructoid.com/wild-law...y-538626.phtml
https://kotaku.com/former-gearbox-la...-ta-1831679539