Boardroom

About eight months after former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio was convicted of selling stock based on inside information he was also shielding from the public, a federal appeals panel overturned the conviction Monday, clearing the way for Nacchio to be tried again before a new judge. A three-judge panel ...

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said his media company won't get into a bidding war with Microsoft for the right to take over Web portal Yahoo. During a keynote speech at the Bear Stearns Media Conference, Murdoch suggested the $44.6 billion offer Microsoft made for Yahoo was too rich for his com...

Facebook has a new honcho. The Web upstart-turned-conglomerate has lured away Sheryl Sandberg, Google's ad platform guru, to join its team as chief operating officer. Sandberg, who was with Google for six years, made an indelible stamp at the organization as she built out the Adsense and Adwords pro...

Seeking to buy time for its directors to explore alternatives before Microsoft can mount a campaign to win seats on its board, Yahoo has modified the way it nominates board members. The portal amended its bylaws to extend the deadline for nominating directors. The deadline was originally March 14 bu...

Online brokerage E*Trade has named Donald H. Layton as its new chief executive officer, giving the financial services industry veteran the task of stemming a stock price drop and finding profitable growth opportunities. Layton had served as chairman of E*Trade's board since last November, when he ca...

Ever since Microsoft made an unsolicited takeover bid for Yahoo -- a $44.6 billion proposition -- Yahoo has been beset with distractions, which the company readily acknowledged in making its annual report. The loss of key employees and the exodus of advertisers from its platform have been among the ...

Commonly, a publicly held corporation will go to the public markets in order to raise capital. Unfortunately, directors' risk of liability can be substantially increased when a company is raising capital. This is particularly the case if any of the lenders or investors in a particular capital raise ...

Microsoft has announced one of its most sweeping executive reorganizations in years, promoting 14 and announcing the departure of three. Many of the changes are aimed at the online and mobile units, where the overlap with potential acquisition target Yahoo is the greatest. Some of the changes had be...

Just days after announcing a major mobile acquisition, Microsoft reportedly is poised to shake up the upper management of its mobile division after the group's former director departed to take a position with Vodafone. Microsoft's mobile business -- which could get a significant boost if the softwar...

HP on Wednesday reached a financial settlement with the New York Times and four reporters who were spied upon as part of a scandal dating back to 2006 that brought about the downfall of the company's chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn, along with several high-ranking executives. The reporters were Busines...

Sprint Nextel said Tuesday it would add an investor who has been agitating for changes at the struggling company to its board of directors. Sprint appointed Ralph V. Whitworth, founder and principal of Relational Investors, to its board. Whitworth will take the seat immediately but will have to stan...

When a company is not publicly held, there is generally no legal reason why it should have a board of directors. Yet, there are plenty of private companies that have boards. In fact, I happen to sit on the board of a private company. So, the question must be asked: When should a private company have...

Sprint Nextel announced the layoffs of three top executives on Thursday, continuing the company's restructuring as it attempts to bolster its sagging financial situation. The three executives -- Chief Financial Officer Paul Saleh, Chief Marketing Officer Tim Kelley and Mark Angelino, president of sa...

If Meg Whitman validates media reports that she is exiting the CEO post at eBay, she will depart with the glow of having finished a masterful job of transforming an obscure San Jose, Calif.-based auction site into an archetypal business model with yearly global sales of nearly $6 billion. "Think abo...

Overstock.com cofounder Jason Lindsey has resigned from the company's board and has given up his titles of president and chief operating officer, unexpected moves likely to raise questions about the company's holiday season performance. Lindsey, who founded Overstock with CEO Patrick Byrne, stepped ...