Riot Games Establishing Global Deals Council and Ethics Committee

Riot Games will establish a global deals council and an ethics committee following the controversies surrounding their partnership with NEOM, a Saudi Arabian state-backed city development, according to ESPN’s Jacob Wolf.

Per the report, the global deals council will come with a new internal deal tracker that will provide company-wide transparency for all business development and sponsorship deals occurring in Riot’s global operation, and will feature representatives from the Global Esports team, Riot’s social impact division Karma, and its legal and diversity and inclusion teams.

The council will ultimately answer to Riot Games’ senior Vice President Mark Sottosanti and head of corporate and business development Brian Cho.

“The intent is for all of us to have a voice to raise a flag and for that to be followed through on,” Riot president Dylan Jadeja told employees on a company-wide call Thursday last week. “That team, that department, will also be responsible for formalizing and reinforcing the deal evaluation framework.”

“We’re not going to comment on specifics of an internal conversation,” Riot spokesperson Joe Hixson said in a statement issued on the same day. “We’re in the process of reevaluating our internal processes to make sure nothing like this happens again.”