Take-Two Settles "Hot Coffee" Class Action Lawsuit

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 2, 2009 - 9:06am.

New York - Video game publisher Take-Two Interactive (NASD: TTWO) announced that it will pay $20 million to settle a shareholder class action suit filed against the company over the "Hot Coffee" sexually explicit content contained in its "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" game, and its stock options granting practices.

The controversy saw developers from Take-Two's Rockstar Games include a sexually explicit scene in the game's code, which could only be unlocked with a key developed by a hacker and posted online.

Under the terms of the settlement, Take-Two itself will pay about $5 million -- which it says it has already accrued for over the past several quarters -- while the company's insurers will pay the remaining $15 million.

The company has also agreed to add undisclosed supplements to the "substantial changes" it already made to its corporate governance policies and practices resulting from the incident.

"We are pleased to have reached this settlement, which represents another important step forward for the company," said Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick.

*This story was clarified to denote the settlement referred to a class action filed by shareholders, and not the other class action lawsuits filed by consumers over "Hot Coffee."

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http://snipurl.com/rjv7t (VentureBeat)

http://www.take2games.com