XXL ASA is still looking for a new chief executive for the group, after the CEO of its Swedish subsidiary, Per Sigvardsson, stepped down recently following a controversy surrounding a Facebook post made in April about a Swedish climate activist, Greta Thunberg.
Sigvardsson himself claimed that he had been hacked and, in a press release, XXL wrote that following the hacking claims, the company initiated an immediate investigation, using an external, independent company. The investigation could neither confirm nor deny how these posts had been published, or whether his Facebook account had been compromised by outsiders.
In a press release, XXL said that Sigvardsson himself had chosen to terminate his position with immediate effect, in order to help defuse the situation. In a joint statement with the chairman and main shareholder of XXL, Øivind Tidemandsen, Sigvardsson told a Norwegian online news service, Nettavisen, that they would go to court to find out who was behind the post.
XXL also wrote that the company has zero tolerance for any offensive or harassing behavior, whether cultural, sexual, political or religious in nature.
