Conway's head was on PeopleSoft block for weeks

Testimony from a PeopleSoft board member has indicated that the company had been thinking about removing deposed CEO Craig Conway for some time.

A PeopleSoft board member testified on Monday that former CEO Craig Conway was fired in large part because of his 'reckless exaggeration' to Wall Street analysts when informing them last year that Oracle's offer to buy the company was no longer a disruptive influence.

Steven Goldby, who chairs PeopleSoft's governance committee, said two weeks ago the board had reviewed Conway's deposition elaborating on his remarks.

"I was somewhat surprised by the discussion of situational ethics," Goldby told Delaware's Chancery Court, in the first day of a trial which Oracle hopes will permit the acquisition to proceed.

Oracle launched its hostile takeover bid the for rival software maker in June 2003.

Oracle's lawyers played a five-minute videotape of the deposition, in which Conway acknowledged being less than honest during the conversation with analysts in September 2003. At the end of the video, after repeated questioning, Conway admitted that his remarks "weren't true".

PeopleSoft's board, in announcing Conway's firing last week, declined to give specifics as to why they terminated his employment, other than to note that it was a progressive loss of confidence in his leadership and that it had nothing to do with Oracle's takeover bid. Some sources have speculated that Conway's firing was allegedly for taking action repeatedly without proper notification to the board.

PeopleSoft had filed an amended transcript of the September 2003 remarks with the Securities and Exchange Commission shortly after the original document was filed.

Declan McCullagh writes for News.com