Electronic Arts Settles Overtime Lawsuit

Electronic Arts (ERTS Quote) has agreed to settle a class-action suit by employees who had accused the company of illegally failing to pay them for overtime.

The video game software publisher agreed to pay $15.6 million to settle the suit, which was on behalf of a class of the company's current and former graphic artists, according to a statement from the company. The settlement amount covers payments to the employees, their attorney fees and administrative costs related to the settlement.

The company didn't say how many employees will share in the settlement or how much they will receive. A company representative didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

The suit was one of two filed by EA employees against the company charging that EA had avoided paying them overtime by improperly classifying them as exempt employees. A class-action suit filed in February by software engineers is still outstanding.

The company did not say how much the settlement might affect its reported results. But given the number of shares the company had outstanding at the end of June, the pretax settlement amount is equivalent to about 5 cents a share.

Shares of EA fell slightly following the announcement. In recent after-hours trading, the stock was off 13 cents, or less than 1%, to $54.42. Earlier in the day, the company's stock closed regular trading off 41 cents, or about 0.8%, to $54.55.