Phorm's night of the long knives

They don't do things by halves at Phorm - they do it wholesale. In a move reminiscent of a purge of an east-European politburo circa 1952, the controversial ISP adware tracking technology company yesterday dumped four of its board members (including a chairman who held on to his seat for just three months). But then that's what you get for falling out with that nice Mr. Ertugrul.

Out on their ears are non-executive directors David Dorman (ex-AT&T) and Christopher Lawrence.They depart in short order accompanied by Stephen Heyer, (ex-COO of Coca Cola) whose tenure as chairman will go down as one of the shortest in history, and Virasb Vahidi, who also doubled-up as chief operating officer.

In a terse statement referencing those getting the bum's rush, Phorm said the cull was "a result of differences with Mr Ertugrul as to the management and future direction of the company." i.e. "Don't Cross Da Boss."

Following the dismissals, the company duly completed the necessary hypocritical niceties with Kent Ertugrul himself commenting, 'I would like to thank Steve, Dave, Chris and Virasb for the important contributions they have made to Phorm's development. Their skills, experience and contacts have been immensely valuable and have been instrumental in the great strides..... and blah, blah, blah. And if you believe that.....

Ertugul holds 15 per cent of Phorm's shares and, it is believed, turned on his compatriots after it emerged that "some directors" (guess who? we ask) expressed the views that he should stand down and allow Phorm to be either sold or merged with another company.

Also significant is the fact that the four sacked directors were all based in the US and were keen to see Phorm's controversial Webwise software getting more focus there while Kent Ertugul is keen to push the system in Europe.

Interestingly, one of the reasons cited for the dismissal of the four directors is the fact that their being sited in the US "caused problems with board meetings". No video conferencing or tele-presence for them then? A bit too out there and outre as a technology, perhaps? But then, isn't out there and outre technology just what Phorm does?

Naturally the departing gang of four have been instantly replaced. The new non-exec recruits are Kip Meek, an advisor to the UK government on broadband matters. Mr Meek is the chairman of the Broadband Stakeholders Group and was a sometime senior functionary at Ofcom, the UK telecoms and media regulator. Two others are both investment bankers, and come with the obligatory double-barreled surnames that are apparently de rigeur easily to mark-out financial luminaries from amongst the common herd of the hoi-polloi. The are Stefan Allesch-Taylor and Stephen Partridge-Hicks. Precisely.

However, by far the most interesting newcomer is none other than the former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman (now Lord) Lamont. As a commoner he oversaw the debacle that was Black Wednesday when, back in 1992, interest rates were raised twice in a single day and Britain was ignominiously forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, despite Lamont's own protestations that he would never, ever allow such a thing to happen.

Sterling had been pegged to the Deutschmark at 2.85.