Anne Evans, a former vice president in human resources at Unity Technologies, has filed a sexual harassment and wrongful termination lawsuit against game engine maker Unity Technologies. Her allegations allege sexual harassment by CEO John Riccitiello.
In the lawsuit, Evans alleged that Unity had a “highly sexualized” workplace where executives talked openly about their sexual conquests. On top of that, Evans alleged that Riccitiello solicited her for sex on multiple occasions. Riccitiello has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Unity issued a statement regarding the lawsuit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court:
“Unity intends to vigorously defend against the false allegations asserted by Anne Evans. Following a third-party investigation that surfaced facts that Evans engaged in serious misconduct and established multiple instances in which she demonstrated a gross lapse in judgment, Unity terminated her employment. This was an undesirable outcome for Evans, and we had been working with her on the details of her departure when she filed a public lawsuit that includes false and damaging claims against the company, our CEO and a number of our employees. Before and throughout the investigation, Evans had multiple opportunities to share her concerns about her experiences at the company through confidential and objective mechanisms, yet never did. We take these issues seriously at Unity, just as we did when we learned about concerns involving Evans. We do not tolerate harassment, and we have policies in place to address relationships in the workplace.”
The lawsuit filed June 5 alleges retaliation, failure to prevent discrimination, and wrongful termination, among other allegations.
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Evans said in the lawsuit that she started as a senior director of recruiting at Unity in 2015. In 2017, she was promoted to vice president. She alleged that Riccitiello began to make inappropriate sexual remarks to her. She said he propositioned her for sex on two occasions, once in San Francisco and another time in Paris.
In a separate matter, Evans said she had a dispute with another employee at Unity. And earlier this year, that dispute resulted in her termination from the company. She alleged that was a wrongful termination, and it represented retaliation against her. Then she sued.
