Multiple Former Employees Have Accused the CEO of Verbal Abuse & Harassment
A report from the Russian gaming news outlet Kanobu contains multiple accusations of verbal abuse made against the CEO of Nintendo Russia, Yasha Haddaji. Another gaming news outlet, Nintendo Life, also reported on accusations of sexual harassment made against Haddaji.
Earlier this week, 2017 footage of Haddaji verbally attacking his employees for technical issues that came up during a livestream was reported on and according to one of the stream’s organizers, Dmitry Steblev, Haddaji “was equally abusive toward all his subordinates and wasn’t shy about going off at them in English, Russian and French equivalents of F-bombs.”
“The ‘Are you a retard?’ question is an absolute norm for the CEO,” Kanobu reports.
One former employee, Miroslava Basnak, claims that she heard that employees have made complaints about Haddaji’s behavior to the higher-ups at Nintendo Europe but those complaints were ignored.
According to Kanobu’s report, Haddaji’s alleged behavior is likely due to him having a multi-year contract which “makes him think he can do whatever he wants.”
In a statement to Nintendo Life, Nintendo Europe said that they were conducting an investigation of these allegations.
“We are aware of a video uploaded to YouTube recently in which Nintendo Russia’s General Manager, Yasha Haddaji, is seen losing his temper during an altercation with an external vendor in charge of a Mario Kart livestream,” their statement read. “Mr. Haddaji’s conduct and choice of words are most certainly not in line with our company values.”
“We are also aware of further allegations that have appeared in the wake of this video and are now running a thorough investigation,” the statement continued. “We take these matters extremely seriously and will not comment further while we are running our investigation.”
What do you think of this news? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Sources: Kanobu, Nintendo Life