SiliconBeat

Tvia, the troubled fabless chip company that filed for bankruptcy back in October days after its directors voted themselves $20,000 for past services and then promptly quit, evidently had a face-to-face meeting with a committee of its shareholders on Jan. 14 at which time it explained that its goal is to  liquidate the company, and that it viewed bankruptcy court as Read the rest of this entry »

A day after voting themselves $20,000 in cash for “past services” and a day before their company filed for bankruptcy, three directors of Tvia, a fabless — and profitless — Santa Clara company focused on chips for digital displays, called it quits Tuesday, according to a filing Thursday.

Among those resigning was Read the rest of this entry »

Hands up if you’ve ever heard of TVIA? Neither had we, until today when the company filed an amended 8-K that is just plain ugly. It mostly contains a note from former director Celso Azevedo who resigned Sept. 12.

At the time, the company was forced to disclose in another 8-K a truly harsh memo that Azevedo had written in frustration. The company denied the various allegations and said that Azevedo’s logic had been faulty.

By way of background, TVIA (ticker: TVIA.PK) is a fabless seminconductor company based in Santa Clara that trades on the pink sheets. It’s stock generally bounces around under $1 per share. And like everyone and their dog, the company has been grappling with an options backdating mess. Azevedo joined the board in May, and more recently had been pushing for the ouster of CEO Eli Porat due to a number of issues.

The latest filing delivers Azevedo’s rebuttle:

“To make it very clear, the main reason behind my resignation was the impossibility to have the board of directors agree to replace the CEO. Any CEO with this track record should have been replaced by the previous board of directors, or at the latest by the current board. In the absence of support for this decision, given a blocked 3:3 position amongst the directors, I had concluded that the company could not be taken to a successful path with its incumbent CEO and its situation should not be perpetuated. Such blocking persisted, even though a four person majority of the board had decided to strip the CEO of his authority, which was given back to him under the advice given to the board by an attorney brought in by the CEO, which advice I believe to be unfounded and incorrect, that control by an executive committee could or would jeopardize the Company’s D&O insurance.
The Form 8-K filing continues a pattern of presenting misleading, and outright false, statements about the Company which is a second main reason why I felt my resignation was necessary to protect me from the implication that I concurred in such behaviour.”

So what does Azevedo think Porat has done?

Read the rest of this entry »