Report: Lawsuits raise concerns over Xsolla CEO’s use of company money
Update: This article was amended to more accurately communicate the allegations presented in Bloomberg’s original report.
A day after teaming with Savvy Games Group to provide financial support developers in Saudi Arabia, Xsolla is now under fire for its CEO allegedly treating the company like his “personal piggy bank.”
Per Bloomberg, six former executives have filed lawsuits against Xsolla or CEO Aleksandr “Shurick” Agapitov since 2019. Two of those lawsuits voiced concerns about the company’s financial practices or how Agapitov used cash from the game-focused commerce platform, with one allegation claiming he transferred $120 million in company money to his personal accounts between 2021 and 2023.
Of that, nearly $70 million (or 64 percent) was transferred in 2023. Documents obtained by the outlet claim Agapitov would later send up to $25 million back to the account per transfer, often one-to-three weeks after putting money into his accounts.
In total, he’s allegedly returned $102 million of that transferred money over a six-month period. While most of that went towards personal loans, $10 million is said to have been directed to “residential construction” (read: a second mansion next to his first).
The legal side of Xsolla and Agapitov’s financial sagaDavid Stelzer, Xsolla’s current president, dismissed the claims to Bloomberg and called the documents “inaccurate.” He said “Xsolla manages its financial affairs responsibly and in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations.”
Further, he claimed putting the alleged figures “against the company’s overall revenue for the period, is highly misleading and creates a fundamentally distorted picture of the company’s financial activities.”
Nonetheless, Bloomberg notes that two former executives, ex-global accounting VP Emil Aliyev and CFO Joe Chang, were individually fired for inquiring about Xsolla’s financials. Their firings later resulted in wrongful termination suits on their behalf by the former chief people officer and product VP.
A suit filed in 2022 claims firings were par for the course, and that Agapitov would “terminate executives without any warning if they made any complaints about potentially unlawful activity.” Some of those suits have now been settled or dismissed.
You can read Bloomberg’s full report on Xsolla here.
About the Author
Contributing Editor, GameDeveloper.com
A Kansas City, MO native, Justin Carter has written for numerous sites including IGN, Polygon, and SyFy Wire. In addition to Game Developer, his writing can be found at io9 over on Gizmodo. Don’t ask him about how much gum he’s had, because the answer will be more than he’s willing to admit.
