Richard Garriott Sues NCsoft Over Stock Options

Claiming breach of contract, Tabula Rasa and Ultima Online creator Richard Garriott is suing MMO publisher NCsoft for "more than $27,000,000 in actual damages," GamePolitics reports.

The official complaint crafted by Garriot's legal team (.pdf) alleges that NCsoft fired him during the "quarantine from his space flight" and then publicly characterized his departure as voluntary. Aside from being rude, this act proved financially detrimental. Per court documents:

As Mr. Garriott prepared to leave NCSoft, however, Mr. Garriott learned that NCsoft had internally re-characterized his termination by Mr. Chung as a "voluntary" resignation... This mischaracterization had profound and detrimental effects on Mr. Garriott's stock options: if NCsoft terminated Mr. Garriott's employment (which it did) then the options - worth tens of millions of dollars - would remain in effect until 2011; but if Mr. Garriott resigned voluntarily (which he did not), then NCsoft might have terminated those options... within ninety days of his departure...

NCsoft forced Mr. Garriott into a Hobson's choice of exercising his options... and forced him to sell into one of the worst equity markets in modern history...

Since we first reported on Garriott's departure from NCsoft, I've spoken to friends at the company who all seem to genuinely believe he left amiably and of his own free will. Garriott however, alleges that he repeatedly asked the firm to "retract its misstatements ... and the cancellation of his stock options," all to no avail.

Image courtesy NCsoft

Richard Garriott Sues NC Soft Over Millions in Stock Options [GamePolitics]