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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

In a move that has not amused some of the company's investors and board members, Uber's former CEO Travis Kalanick has appointed two new members to Uber's board [bloomberg.com]. The move has been described as a "power play":

Kalanick said in an announcement late Friday that he had appointed Ursula Burns, Xerox Corp.'s former CEO, and John Thain, the ex-Merrill Lynch chief, to the startup's board. Uber challenged the appointments, calling them "a complete surprise."

The former CEO is defending himself against a lawsuit brought by Uber's largest shareholder, Benchmark, over his authority to fill the two board seats. Kalanick says he controls three of the company's eleven board seats. Benchmark is suing Kalanick for fraud and has asked him to relinquish control of board positions. The suit is in private arbitration.

Kalanick resigned as CEO on June 20 after Benchmark and a group of early investors asked him to step down. Uber's board has been rife with infighting and underwent a contentious process to select former Expedia Inc. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi as its new chief.

"I am appointing these seats now in light of a recent board proposal to dramatically restructure the board and significantly alter the company's voting rights," Kalanick said in a statement emailed to Bloomberg. "It is therefore essential that the full board be in place for proper deliberation to occur, especially with such experienced board members as Ursula and John."

Also at NYT [nytimes.com], TechCrunch [techcrunch.com], Recode [recode.net], and WSJ [wsj.com].

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