Verizon executives, displeased by revelations of a massive data breach at Yahoo, want to trim their buyout offer by $1 billion, the New York Post reported Friday, citing “several” unnamed sources familiar with the pending deal.
The telecommunications giant’s current offer on the table, announced in July, is for $4.8 billion. Yahoo disclosed on Sept. 22 that it was the target of a massive 2014 data breach affecting some 500 million user accounts.
“In the last day we’ve heard that Tim [Armstong] is getting cold feet. He’s pretty upset about the lack of disclosure and he’s saying can we get out of this or can we reduce the price?” a source told the New York Post.
The development comes on the heels of a fresh legal headache for Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, now the target of a new discrimination lawsuit.
Scott Ard, a former Yahoo executive whom Ms. Mayer terminated, is taking his old boss to federal court in San Jose, California, the East Bay Times said on Thursday.
“Mayer encouraged and fostered the use of (an employee performance-rating system) to accommodate management’s subjective biases and personal opinions, to the detriment of Yahoo’s male employees,” says a court filing by Mr. Ard, the East Bay Times reported.
“In addition to Mayer, two other female executives, former vice-president of news Megan Liberman and former chief marketing officer Kathy Savitt, are accused in the lawsuit of discriminating on the basis of gender,” said the Walnut Creek, Calif.-based newspaper.
• Ken Shepherd can be reached at kshepherd@washingtontimes.com.
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