Ousted Disco Elysium developers look set for court battle with studio owners
A legal battle is on the cards following a series of explosive allegations from former Disco Elysium developers and the owners of the studio that fired them.
In rival statements released on Wednesday, key creators of the celebrated detective RPG alleged they were defrauded and ousted from development studio ZA/UM, while the studio’s owners claimed they were let go due to misconduct.
“We think it’s time people knew what has transpired at the company”, Disco Elysium game director Robert Kurvitz and art director Aleksander Rostov wrote in a Medium post.
According to the pair, who are minority shareholders in independent, European studio ZA/UM, things started to go sour after an Estonian company called Tütreke OÜ acquired a majority shareholding in the company.
“As soon as they became majority shareholders, we were quickly excluded from daily operations, our employment was terminated and our access to the company’s information was shut off,” they claim. “Our firing came weeks after we started asking for documents and financial data, which is still being kept from us.
“We have now learned that Tütreke OÜ must have obtained control over Zaum Studio OÜ by fraud. We believe the money used by Tütreke OÜ to buy the majority stake was taken illegally from Zaum Studio OÜ itself, money that belonged to the studio and all shareholders but was used for the benefit of one. Money that should have gone towards making the sequel.
“We believe that these actions — which in our view, and the view of our lawyers, amount to criminal wrongdoing punishable by up to three years imprisonment — were perpetrated by [ZA/UM CEO] Ilmar Kompus and Tõnis Haavel with support from Kaur Kender, another minority shareholder.”
The pair added: “We are now in the
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