scandal

After onstage spat, Offerpal replaces CEO

Offerpal Media, a company that helps social-network app creators make money from offers and surveys, on Tuesday announced that it had replaced its CEO in the wake of a high-profile onstage argument at a conference and subsequent press over whether it's scamming consumers who fill out offers in order to earn virtual goods in social games.

Anu Shukla, who founded the company and had been serving as CEO since its 2007 launch, will be replaced by George Garrick, who has served as the CEO of Flycast Communications, Wine.com, Jingle Networks, and Mochi Media. Shukla "will still be … Read more

Hackborn won't seek re-election to HP board

One of the Hewlett-Packard board's last remaining ties to some of the company's most turbulent times will soon be severed.

Richard Hackborn, the HP board of directors' lead independent director, informed the board last week he will not seek re-election at the company's annual meeting scheduled for March 18, according to a Tuesday SEC filing. Hackborn will continue to serve until that date.

An HP representative said Tuesday it was Hackborn's "personal decision to retire."

Hackborn was a longtime HP employee before joining the board. He served briefly as chairman from January to September … Read more

Former WorldCom CEO seeks clemency

WorldCom's former CEO Bernard Ebbers is seeking clemency from George Bush in the final days of his presidency.

Ebbers, who was convicted of helping mastermind an $11 billion accounting fraud, is asking the president to reduce his 25-year sentence. Ebbers has filed a petition for commutation to the Office of the Pardon Attorney. And the petition is under review, a Justice Department spokeswoman told Reuters.

The U.S. Constitution grants the president the power to pardon convicted felons either erasing their convictions or reducing their prison sentences. And it's common in the last days of an administration for … Read more

Former Nortel execs face criminal charges

Three former Nortel Networks executives are being criminally charged in Canada for misstating the company's financial results in 2002 and 2003.

Nortel's former CEO Frank Dunn along with former CFO Douglas Beatty, and former controller Michael Gollogly have been charged with fraud, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The executives were fired in 2004 as part of a massive accounting scandal at the company. As a result of the scandal, Nortel, which makes and sells equipment to phone companies, was forced to restate earnings as far back as 2001. In 2005, the company admitted it had overstated revenue by $3.4 billion.… Read more

Dysfunctional executive watch

Here's the first installment of Train Wreck's first recurring post: Dysfunctional Executive Watch. It'll show up whenever there's enough material. Enjoy the lunacy, and let us know if you've got something to report.

You've got fraud On Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against eight former executives of AOL Time Warner for fraudulently inflating online advertising revenue by more than $1 billion. Four of the executives agreed to pay millions in fines and return ill-gotten gains. Charges against the other four, including former CFO John Michael Kelly, are still pending.

The company had previously agreed to fork over $500 million to settle civil and criminal charges brought by the SEC and the Justice Department.… Read more

Finnish minister the latest politician sunk by texting

Following a recent trend of politicians embroiled in text message-related sex scandals, Finland's foreign minister is facing calls for his resignation Saturday after a tabloid published a suggestive text message he had sent to an erotic dancer, Reuters is reporting.

Ilkka Kanerva sent about 200 text messages to the 29-year-old dancer and at first said they were related to her performing at his 60th birthday party, Reuters says. But on Friday he admitted the messages weren't appropriate.

A Finnish paper quoted him as saying, "I would not present them in Sunday school, but they are not totally … Read more

The word on Wales' Wikipedia woes

Sex. Money. Incriminating instant messages. From the news that's been pouring in recently, you'd think Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales were the tech industry's own Client No. 9.

In a series of embarrassing peccadilloes that were originally relegated to gossip blogs like Valleywag, Wales' failed relationship with former Fox News commentator Rachel Marsden took center stage when Marsden "leaked" some of their online chats to the Web and made quite the public display of auctioning some of his clothes on eBay. The usual blog storm followed: photos of other women with whom Wales had reportedly been … Read more

Eliot Spitzer and the Internet bubble

Five years ago, then N.Y. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer was involved in an investigation into conflicts of interest between research and investment banking at ten of the nation's top investment firms during the Internet bubble.

The landmark $1.4 billion settlement helped put Mr. Spitzer on a fast track to the governor's mansion, but that's not the whole story.… Read more

Celebrity porn scandal rocks Internet in China

A pink MacBook, a computer repair shop, an internationally renowned actor, and eight female pop stars are at the center of what is being described as the biggest Internet sex scandal in China.

It all began last year, when Edison Chen, a star of Infernal Affairs--the movie that inspired Martin Scorsese's The Departed, dropped off his custom pink MacBook at a repair shop. Then in late January, thousands of sexually explicit images began appearing on the Internet that showed Chen in rather compromising positions with eight of the region's most popular actresses and singers. Authorities say the images … Read more