The chief executive of Yahoo will not receive a cash bonus and has offered to forgo stock awards thought to be worth millions after the company said that security breaches dating back to 2014 had compromised hundreds of millions of users’ personal data and dented earnings.
In an statement late Wednesday, the tech company said that in response to the breach and the way that it was dealt with internally, the board had decided not to award Marissa Mayer a cash bonus for 2016 and that she had also offered to waive the right to a sizeable annual equity award for this year—an offer that the board accepted.
It also said that Ronald Bell had resigned as the company’s general counsel and secretary on Wednesday as a result of his role in dealing with the incident.
“In late 2014, senior executives and relevant legal staff were aware that a state-sponsored actor had accessed certain user accounts by exploiting the company’s account management tool,” Yahoo said in the filing.
“The 2014 security incident was not properly investigated and analysed at the time, and the company was not adequately advised with respect to the legal and business risks associated with the 2014 security incident,” it added.
Yahoo has endured a turbulent few years and Ms Mayer has repeatedly come under fire for her handling of the 2014 breaches.
“When I learned in September 2016 that a large number of our user database files had been stolen, I worked with the team to disclose the incident to users, regulators, and government agencies,” Ms Mayer wrote in a blog post on Tumblr.
“However, I am the CEO of the company and since this incident happened during my tenure, I have agreed to forgo my annual bonus and my annual equity grant this year and have expressed my desire that my bonus be redistributed to our company’s hardworking employees.”
Yahoo on Wednesday said that it had recorded expenses of $16m in relation to the security incidents in the year ended 31 December.
It also said that it expects that capital expenditures in 2017 will be slightly higher than the amount reported in 2016.
Additional reporting by wires
