HP settles pretexting cases
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Hewlett-Packard settled cases with The New York Times Company and three BusinessWeek journalists Wednesday after being caught spying on reporters in 2006.
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(InfoWorld) - A shareholder lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard (HP) forÂ attempting to spy on board members and reportersÂ has been expanded to include charges of insider stock trading. An amended complaint filed Wednesday in the Superior Court of California for Santa Clara County accuses HP Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd and seven other company executives of selling $41.3 million worth of HP stock at "inflated prices" shortly before the company revealed that its investigators had used questionable and possibly illegal techniques to gain access to personal records such as phone call logs. The eight executives sold 1.7 million shares of stock between Aug. 21 and Sept. 6, according to the lawsuit. In an Aug. 31 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), HP said an outside investigator used the practice of pretexting, pretending to be someone else, to gain access to personal records. Former HP Chairman Patricia Dunn and four others face criminal charges stemming from their alleged participation in the spying, which also used e-mail tracer technology, according to testimony before a U.S. congressional committee. HP also tried to prop up the value of its stock price by announcing on Aug. 21 it would repurchase $6 billion worth of its stock, the lawsuit says. "In the midst of this acrimony HP executives cashed in," says the complaint, filed by the Lerach, Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins LLP law firm. HP issued a statement calling the lawsuit "baseless." The lawsuit "represents a transparent effort to exploit issues related to HP's recent investigation for personal gain at the expense of HP, its shareholders and its employees," the statement said. "HP will defend itself vigorously." HP acknowledged that it had obtained the phone records of 12 people by using pretexting. The stockholder lawsuit, originally filed in September, asks the court to declare that HP's executives have "committed breaches of their fiduciary duties" and to order executives to repay the amount the company has been damaged by the spying scandal. The lawsuit also asks the court to require HP to reform its corporate governance and to extract punitive damages from Dunn, Hurd and other HP executives.
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(InfoWorld) - A U.S. government panel has asked a corporate ethics lawyer from Hewlett-Packard (HP) to testify in its Sept. 28 hearing onÂ the company's use of "pretexting"Â to spy on journalists, board members and other employees. The investigative unit of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce CommitteeÂ said Wednesday that it has asked HP Senior Counsel Kevin Hunsaker and Fred Adler, a company computer security investigator, to join a growing list of witnesses. The subcommittee had also previously requested testimony from outgoing HP Chairman Patricia Dunn, HP General Counsel Ann Baskins, HP Global Security Manager Anthony Gentilucci, outside attorney Larry Sonsini as well as outside investigators. The practice of "pretexting" usually involves pretending to be a person, in order to obtain that person's personal information. An HP spokesman declined to comment. Up until now, Dunn has insisted she merely initiated the probe of boardroom leaks, and was ignorant of specific techniques used by investigators. "Unfortunately, the investigation, which was conducted with third parties, included certain inappropriate techniques. These went beyond what we understood them to be, and I apologize that they were employed," Dunn said in a recent statement. ButÂ e-mail correspondence examined by newspapersÂ including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times indicates that top HP officials solicited Dunn's opinion and questioned investigation techniques throughout the course of the leak probe. As early as Aug. 6, 2005, HP's Gentilucci asked for Dunn's advice about using "internal and external sources" to gather intelligence on "interested parties," according to company e-mail seen by The Wall Street Journal. Gentilucci offered to brief HP management on more details of "Project Kona" in a proposed meeting on Aug. 31. It is still unknown if that meeting took place, but Dunn replied to the e-mail, promising to respond. By Jan. 28, 2006, e-mail from Hunsaker to Adler shows that HP's own lawyers were closely questioning investigation techniques, The Wall Street Journal reports. Asked whether HP could legally spy on board members' cell-phone text messages, Adler replied: "Even if we could legally obtain the records, which we can't unless we pay the bill or get consent, I would highly suspect text-messaging records are not kept due to volume and expense." It is unclear if HP obtained text messages. But in an April 28 e-mail to Gentilucci and an outside investigator, Ron DeLia of Security Outsourcing Solutions Inc., in Boston, Hunsaker said he was writing at General Counsel Baskins' request to confirm the details of how the investigation team obtained phone records, The Wall Street Journal reports. In the e-mail, Hunsaker described how investigators were making "pretext calls." Hunsaker also said in the e-mail that his legal research confirmed that pretexting is legal. However, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has said that using fraudulent means to obtain personal information is not legal in the state. Lockyer has said he has evidence to charge people outside and inside HP. House investigators have also asked for testimony from DeLia and private investigator Joe Depante, owner of Action Research Group, which was reportedly hired by HP to help in the investigation. Dunn agreed on Sept. 12 to resign her own position, and will be replaced in January by current chief executive Mark Hurd. Â
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Hewlett-Packard settled cases with The New York Times Company and three BusinessWeek journalists Wednesday after being caught spying on reporters in 2006.The parties did not disclose the size of the settlements. HP has already paid $4.5 million in a civil-case settlement with the State of California related to the incident.The New York Times plans to donate its settlement money to charity, said Terry Gross, the attorney representing the company and the BusinessWeek reporters.HP said it was pleased to put the matter behind it and happy that the award would go partly to charity.The case followed revelations in 2006 that HP had hired investigators to try to find the source of internal company leaks to the press. The investigators, however, were found to have used fraudulent methods, known as&#160;pretexting,&#160;to obtain the reporters&#39; phone records. State and federal laws have since banned the practice.&quot;The New York Times and the BusinessWeek reporters brought this action because they believed that this type of illegal activity aimed at silencing the press should not be allowed,&quot; Gross said.The scandal shook up the executive leadership at HP, with the chairman, another board member and the company&#39;s general counsel all&#160;stepping down.HP faces other outstanding lawsuits relating to the incident.
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Microsoft Corp, Google Inc and Yahoo  Inc agreed to a settlement worth $31.5 million to resolve  accusations that the companies promoted illegal Internet  gambling, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.
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By Jordan Robertson Associated Press  SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard Co.
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Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ.Nhas been   contacted by the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of   California regarding the company's probe into media leaks, the   company said in a regulatory filing made on Monday.
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The California attorney general expects to file charges against people at Hewlett-Packard Co and other companies in relation to the 'pretexting' scandal at HP, in which HP paid investigators who hacked the phone records of its directors and several journalists.
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California's Attorney General is expected to announce a civil settlement with Hewlett-Packard Co. this afternoon, three months after the Silicon Valley computer giant was engulfed in an ethics and spying scandal that led to criminal charges against former top executives.
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Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) has agreed to a $14.5 million settlement in the California civil lawsuit related to the company's spying scandal.
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(InfoWorld) - On the heels of a similarÂ suit filed Thursday by Verizon Wireless Inc., Cingular Wireless LLC on Friday suedÂ private investigators used by Hewlett-Packard Co. to obtain phone records of a CNET News.com journalist. Cingular filed suit in a U.S. District Court in Atlanta against Charles Kelly and CAS Agency Inc. alleging they used pretexting -- or pretending to be someone else to obtain phone records -- to get information from Cingular about customer Dawn Kamamoto, a CNET journalist that HP was investigating. Cingular also named "John Does 1-100" and "XYZ Corps. 1-100" in the suit to accommodate other private investigators that may not have been named who also were involved in obtaining information from Cingular, said company spokesman Mark Siegel. "Sometimes it's hard to identify who is in these companies and who runs them," he said "We [used those terms] to accommodate for the vagueness of the industry." During Congressional hearings Thursday about HP's investigation of journalists -- including Kamamoto and writers from the Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek -- Kelly and CAS Agency were identified as investigators that HP used to obtain phone records information through pretexting, Siegel said. The defendants called customer service agents posing as Kamamoto to obtain her personal information, and also gained unauthorized access to her online account information, Cingular alleged in its filing. They then sold that information to HP. HP executives, including Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd, testified before the House Energy and Commerce Congressional Committee on Thursday about an investigation of journalists that took place in 2005 and earlier this year in an attempt to find out who at HP was leaking sensitive information to the press. The scandal has already forced Patricia Dunn to resign as HP's chairman and sparked investigations by the California attorney general and the U.S. House of Representatives. On Thursday, Verizon Wireless filed suit in New Jersey against investigators who used pretexting to obtain information about an HP director and that director's spouse, and then sold that information to HP. In its suit, Cingular is asking that a judge require the defendants to pay punitive damages to the company and be permanently restricted from: contacting Cingular for any reason, obtaining information about Cingular customers and advertising that they can obtain phone records from wireless companies about their subscribers. Cingular is also asking for the return of any information obtained about Cingular customers to the company. Cingular's Siegel said this is not the first time his company has filed suit against companies that have used pretexting to obtain customer information. "They call themselves data brokers -- we call them data burglars," he said. The company currently has several cases pending against other investigators who have used pretexting, which is not technically illegal, although Cingular believes it should be, Siegel added.
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Hewlett-Packard Co dodged a prolonged PR nightmare by announcing yesterday it would pay just $14.5m to settle a civil case with California over allegations of unlawful spying on reporters and its directors during an internal probe of boardroom leaks to the media.
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Hewlett-Packard Co. and EMC Corp. agreed to let an arbitrator decide how much Hewlett-Packard should pay for infringing on three EMC patents related to computer data storage. A federal jury in Worcester found HP liable for infringement in May 2004, and a trial to set damages was scheduled for Feb. 16. The two sides instead agreed to ''private, binding arbitration," ...
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Internal documents say HP has pretexted before and that its investigators trailed a reporter while on vacation.
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By JORDAN ROBERTSON   Associated Press writer  SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard Co.
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By Therese Poletti, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  SJ-0523-Hewlett-Packard-settles-with-SEC   Hewlett-Packard settles with SEC   Therese Poletti  San Jose  Mercury News, Calif.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has asked a federal court to make two Florida companies stop telephone pretexting and to pay back victims of the practice. One of the companies, Action Research Group, has been linked in press reports to last year'sÂ Hewlett-Packard pretexting scandal, which led to theÂ resignation of HP Chairman Patricia DunnÂ last September. The second company, Eye in the Sky Investigations, has "performed services" for Action Research Group, the complaint said. Eye in the Sky also was called to testify before a congressional investigation into the matter. In a complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Orlando, the FTC claims that the practice of pretexting violates the U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996. Telephone pretexting is illegal in some states, but Thursday's complaint seeks to clarify where the FTC stands on the practice. "Selling the records constitutes an invasion of privacy that could endanger the health and safety of consumers," the FTC said in a statement released Thursday. It is also a violation of federal law, the statement says. HP's top executives became embroiled in a pretexting scandal late last year. While trying to clamp down on a boardroom leak dating back to 2005, HP hired private investigators who obtained telephone records of company employees and journalists by falsely representing themselves as account holders or telephone company employees. The scandal at HP also led to the resignation of Ann Baskins, formerly HP's senior vice president and general counsel, and Kevin Hunsaker, the company's senior legal counsel. On Thursday, an HP spokesman said he welcomed the FTC's move. "HP is opposed to pretexting and has expressly called for the practice to be made illegal," said HP's Ryan Donovan. "We support the FTC's efforts to permanently halt telephone record pretexting." All five FTC commissioners voted to authorize the complaint, the FTC said.