Skype Deal Drama Gets Joost-ier

September 13, 2009 at 9:09 pm PT

There are growing signs of tension between some of the players behind the $2 billion deal to sell eBay’s (EBAY) Skype to a group of investors.

On Friday, Joost, the U.K. Internet video company, said that by shareholder vote it had removed Michelangelo Volpi from its board of directors and from his position as chairman of the company. Volpi, a former high-level Cisco (CSCO) executive, stepped down from Joost’s CEO position in July, and is now a general partner at investment firm Index Ventures. Joost in a statement said it was also “conducting an investigation into Mr. Volpi’s actions during his tenure as CEO and as Chairman.”

In his role at Index, Volpi helped organize the group of investors that’s buying Skype from eBay. Yet Volpi’s relationship with Joost could prove important to the Skype deal coming to a clean conclusion.

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Tagged with: Cisco, deal, digital, Digits, eBay, frontpage, Geoffrey A. Fowler, Index Ventures, innovation, investigation, investors, Joost, Michelangelo Volpi, Skype, software, television, The Wall Street Journal, video

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