ANDY Dinh, CEO of Team SoloMid, one of the world’s largest esports organisations, has been fined $75,000 and put on probation for two years for the harassment and bullying of his staff.
Accusations of harassing and bullying behaviour carried out by Dinh towards pro esports players and other TSM staff began emerging in November 2021.
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A former TSM employee accused Dinh of “verbal assaults [that] had caused players and staff public humiliation, mental breakdowns and more”.
Soon after their accusations came to light other current and former employees came forward with further information.
TSM performed an internal investigation which found that Dinh had participated in “no unlawful conduct,” according to The Washington Post.
However, the result of this investigation was not enough for developer Riot and the LCS, the League of Legends Championship Series in North America.
The two organisations worked together to carry out their own investigation, and today’s ruling is the result of it.
A statement released by Riot said:
“Based upon the conclusions we drew from the reporting of our independent investigators, we believe that there was a pattern and practice of disparaging and bullying behaviour exhibited by Dinh.
“This included verbally abusing pro players and TSM staff members and communicating in a demeaning and belittling manner.”
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The report found that Dinh was in breach of several League of Legends rules concerning harassment, profanity, and hate speech.
Dinh’s abuse was reportedly limited to employees’ perceived performance.
He was found not to have been abusive towards people based on their race, gender, or sexual indentities.
The abuse also did not include threats of or actual physical harm.
Dinh must pay $75,000/£63,500 which will go towards an anti-bullying charity of the league’s choosing.
He will be placed on probation for two years to assess if the work culture improves at TSM.
He must also attend executive training and sensitivity training as carried out by a third-party to ensure its professionalism.
At the time of writing Dinh has not made a public statement about the ruling.
Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.
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