Still8, Owners Of Griffin Ordered To Dispose Of Stake Following Controversy Around The Team

Still8, Owners Of Griffin Ordered To Dispose Of Stake Following Controversy Around The Team
Credit: League on Lock - LoL via Youtube

The fiasco surrounding Griffin is coming to an end; for initial details regarding the issue, go to our other article here.

Riot Korea has ordered the executives of the company behind Griffin, Still8, to take responsibility and leave the Griffin LoL team or dispose of it.

The initial decision regarding the Griffin case received a lot of community backlash after the community found out that there was an apparent conflict of interest between one party and the Riot Korea investigating the incident.

The League Champions Korea Steering Committee took a decision a couple of days ago to suspend the former Coach of Griffin indefinitely, acting as a whistleblower in the case. Following this decision, a petition was signed by the community, almost reaching 200K signatures, which would oblige the Government of Korea to respond.

According to insider sources from Riot Korea, they started fearing for their security and decisions regarding this case, if the Government would be involved and modified their decision. The main decisions from their latest press release are:

1) CvMax, the whistleblower and former coach of Griffin, will not be suspended anymore. He has requested an outside organization to reinvestigate the facts and present another point of view to the Steering Committee.

2) Additional details regarding the disciplinary action against former Griffin CEO, Cho Kyu-nam. He was suspended indefinitely, he is no longer allowed to participate or have a stake in any Riot Games organizations. Additionally, the Steering Committee requested separate investigations regarding the threats made by the former CEO against players.

3) Additional actions related to unfair contracts of players. The Steering Committee fined Griffin 100 million KRW, which would be around 85,000 dollars. Due to the ‘slave’ contracts, according to which players forfeited most of their rights, the organization CEO is required to clear up all their stakes in the organization. If the stake is not disposed of, the Steering Committee will eliminate the Challengers Korea & League Champions Korea spots for the Griffin organization.

4) Kanavi, the player who is most affected by this issue with Griffin is considered a Free Agent and can sign with any team he wants. This situation was the most complicated matter due to the Chinese & Korean Law which needed to be carefully investigated.

5) Recurrence prevention. In addition to the improvements plans announced by the LCK Steering Committee, there will be full investigations into all contracts of both the amateur and pro-Korean League of Legends scene. All mistakes by the team will be punished, and disciplinary action will be taken against those responsible.

It is relieving to see the case coming slowly to an end and the former jungler of Griffin, Kanavi, be released out of a multi-year deal which he was pressured to sign by former CEO, Cho Kyu-nam. While this case is not the only one in the scene, hopefully, the Steering Committee of LCK can investigate all the teams and clear up all the abusive restrictions within the contracts.

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