WPP WPP PLC

By Nick Kostov 

This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (June 29, 2018).

WPP PLC said it has asked outside lawyers to investigate a handful of anonymous, encrypted emails sent to current and former employees.

Some of the emails contained messages taken from a WhatsApp group that included former executive assistants to Martin Sorrell, who resigned as chief executive of the advertising giant in April, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The content of the correspondence, which occurred after Mr. Sorrell's resignation, isn't known. The WhatsApp group was used in part to coordinate Mr. Sorrell's travel, the person said.

London-based law firm Slaughter and May Ltd. and New York firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP have been hired to investigate the emails, as well as to advise the current and former employees who received the encrypted emails, the person familiar with the matter said.

In a statement Thursday, WPP said one former and two current employees received six emails from an anonymous sender who used an encrypted email service for the communications.

The company said the conversations cited in the emails were taken from a former employee's mobile device, which the former employee handed back before leaving the company. The company declined to comment further.

The person familiar with the matter said the WhatsApp messages were initially accessed by a company technician on the phone of a former employee. The person said the technician was no longer with the company and said WPP's IT systems hadn't been breached.

The probe follows a tumultuous few months for WPP and Mr. Sorrell. Mr. Sorrell's actions -- both personal and professional -- have been scrutinized since he stepped down after a long tenure. WPP, meanwhile, has faced criticism from shareholders about how it has handled the events surrounding Mr. Sorrell's departure.

Mr. Sorrell resigned as CEO in April after The Wall Street Journal reported that the company's board was looking into an allegation of improper personal behavior and whether Mr. Sorrell had misused company assets. Mr. Sorrell rejected the allegation "unreservedly" at that time.

The probe looked into whether Mr. Sorrell used company money to pay for a prostitute, the Journal subsequently reported, citing people familiar with that investigation.

Last week, Mr. Sorrell denied he visited a prostitute and paid for it with company money. He has also more broadly denied any wrongdoing.

A spokesman for Mr. Sorrell said Thursday: "I have no idea what this is about." Mr. Sorrell has said he is bound by a nondisclosure agreement preventing him from discussing his departure. Last week, when asked in a public panel about his decision to resign, he said he felt his position was "untenable."

WPP has said it is prohibited from discussing Mr. Sorrell's departure in more detail under data protection laws. The board probe has ended, but its findings haven't been disclosed.

WPP cited the emails after the Financial Times reported their existence earlier Thursday.

The probe over the emails is the latest twist in the company's efforts to put Mr. Sorrell's departure behind it.

Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 29, 2018 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)

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