Disco Elysium lawsuit woes continue as fired devs double down on claims of fraud at Studio ZA/UM

rockpapershotgun.com:

The already troubled goings-on at ZA/UM - the studio that developed Disco Elysium - have gotten messier than Harry’s own apartment. Last week ZA/UM announced that one of its legal disputes had been resolved and that they expected the rest of their legal troubles to "fall apart." But fired game director Robert Kurvitz and art director Aleksander Rostov took the oppurtunity to double down on their lawsuit and dispute the studio's claims, calling them "wrong and misleading in several respects."

For the blissfully uninitiated, let’s rewind the clocks. Late last year, it was revealed that several key members of the development team for Disco Elysium - Kurvitz, Rostov, and writer Helen Hindpere - had been fired from ZA/UM, which led to an eventual lawsuit. Kurvitz and Rostov claimed they were fired for asking for financial data, and that the studio had been taken over by Estonian businessmen Ilmar Kompus and banker Tōnis Haavel (previously convicted of investment fraud) through fraudulent means.

Kompus and Haavel bit back, saying the pair were fired for workplace misconduct such as "creating a toxic work environment", "verbal abuse and gender discrimination," and “intending to steal IP”.

Amidst these problems, another fired employee - former marketing manager Kaur Kender - similarly claimed he had been fired for asking questions about the studio’s new management and began his own legal battle. But last week, ZA/UM released a press release to Eurogamer saying that Kender had "divested all his shares in the studio, repaid all his debts to the studio," and resolved the issue. Kender himself said, “I filed a lawsuit which I realised, after seeing the facts, was misguided."

ZA/UM also hinted at Rostov and Kurvitz, saying