The hammer has finally fallen at Yahoo over the two massive security breaches disclosed last year.
Yahoo’s board decided not to award CEO Marissa Mayer a cash bonus “that was otherwise expected to be paid to her” due to the security incidents, according to a company filing on Wednesday.
On top of that, Mayer chose to give up her annual equity grant for 2017. No dollar amount was provided, but the minimum value for the equity she forfeited would be $12 million, based on the terms of her contract.
“I am the CEO of the company and … this incident happened during my tenure,” Mayer said in a statement. “[I] have expressed my desire that my bonus be redistributed to our company’s hardworking employees.”
Yahoo also announced that its general counsel, Ron Bell, resigned from the company on Wednesday following an independent investigation into the breaches.
The investigation concluded Yahoo’s legal team had “sufficient information” to investigate the hack in 2014, but did not “sufficiently” look into the issue.
“While significant additional security measures were implemented in response to those incidents, it appears certain senior executives did not properly comprehend or investigate [the breach],” the company said in its filing.
Yahoo disclosed last year that it suffered two security breaches dating back to 2013 and 2014, affecting more than one billion users.
The breaches threatened to upend Verizon’s previously announced deal to buy Yahoo’s core Internet assets for $4.8 billion. Analysts worried Verizon would seek a $1 billion discount or abandon the deal entirely over concerns about lawsuits and a user exodus.
After months of back and forth, the two companies agreed to cut the acquisition price by $350 million and split the cost of any legal liabilities.
Yahoo is currently facing “approximately” 43 class action lawsuits from customers in the U.S. and abroad, according to Wednesday’s filing.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of the initial Verizon deal.
