Marissa Mayer loses annual bonus over hacking fiasco that affected Yahoo Inc and 500 million accounts of its users. An independent board hired to conduct an investigation found that Yahoo Inc's senior executives failed to comprehend or investigate the hacking situation.

The board is not suggesting that there was a deliberate suppression of relevant information from Yahoo Inc's senior executives. They did however, have sufficient information to warrant an investigation, but did not sufficiently pursue it. The executives were aware of the hacking or the several attempts before and just chose not to act accordingly before it blew out of proportion.

Mayer did not only lose her lucrative annual bonus; she will also not receive a stock award, NPR reported. The amount of the bonus was not disclosed but Mayer's annual base salary as CEO of Yahoo Inc. is at $1 million. Her 2016 bonus would have been double her annual salary but the defamed Yahoo CEO chose to forego it and have it distributed to the staff who worked very hard over the hacking incident instead.

According to a company SEC filing, Mayer's 2015 total compensation package from Yahoo Inc was $13.9 million, Variety reported. The amount includes her stock grants and options, her bonus as an investor with a pending account application, and security service fee.

The hacking stole data from Yahoo users' email accounts. This affected and reduced the $4.83 billion acquisition deal from Verizon by $350 million, which could've been the biggest acquisition deal of the year.

In line with this news is the announcement that the tech company's top lawyer, Ronald S. Bell, has resigned. According to reports, the lawyer will not receive any form of payment from the company in line with his decision to resign. But his resignation is very much connected to the hacking incident.

Furthermore, the investigation has not named the responsible individuals for the hacking incident. Yahoo Inc. however claims that a foreign government used the stolen data to create a forged cookie to access over 32 million Yahoo accounts.

After Verizon's acquisition, Yahoo will cease to exist and will be called Altaba, which Mayer will no longer be part of.

Topics Yahoo, Verizon