It caused quite a stir when Halo and Destiny composer Marty O'Donnell was fired from his position as composer and audio lead at Bungie, and now arbitrator has handed down a final verdict and thus written the final chapter in what has been revealed as a particularly ugly split.
According to the documents it seems the split had to do with several factors. Bungie claimed that O'Donnell had become unwilling to work and that he was causing harm to their relationship with publishing partner Activision. Two things were singled out, O'Donnell was concerned over a seeming uninterested in publishing the score for Destiny (Music of the Spheres) and he was angered when publisher Activision opted to replace his music with music not related to Destiny in the E3 trailer (2013). Things soured between Activision and Bungie leadership on the one hand and O'Donnell. Activision advised that O'Donnell's conduct may constitute a breach of contract and that he should be terminated. O'Donnell was given a harsh performance review, but remained in employment. Bungie then claimed O'Donnell became unwilling to perform his role as audio lead following his return from vacation, for instance he said he couldn't work on the final mix of the audio until the game was in a bug-free state.
As Bungie terminated O'Donnell's employment they wanted him to sign away his equity in the company in order to receive compensation for unused vacation time. O'Donnell sued and has now been given both the compensation, profit-share for Destiny and his equity. A complete with for the composer who now plies his trade at his new company Highwire Games. Part of the agreement also means that O'Donnell can not publish the score for Destiny without the consent of the copyright holders - so it remains to be seen whether Activision and Bungie will swallow their pride and release the music or whether it will remain unreleased.