HP execs: Spy scandal was ethical wake-up call
19289
The silver lining is tighter controls on future internal investigations, the company's top ethics and privacy execs say.
757468
(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-PackardÂ Chief Executive Officer and President Mark Hurd Friday confirmed that he approved a probe of HP employees, board members and journalists in an effort to find out who on the HP board was leaking confidential information outside of the company. However, Hurd said he did not approve the placement of tracing technology in an e-mail to a journalist, and apologized for this and any other "inappropriate" tactics -- such as physical surveillance and obtaining phone records under false pretenses, known as "pretexting" -- that HP undertook in its investigation to find the source of information leaks. "I extend my sincere apology to those journalists who were investigated and to everyone who was impacted," Hurd said. "The inappropriate techniques that were applied do not reflect the value of HP. ... These are not indicative of how we conduct business at HP." Hurd also said he accepted the resignation of Patricia Dunn from her position as chairman of the HP board and a director, effective immediately, and thanked her for her eight years of service on HP's board. Previously, Dunn was to stay on as a director of the board, but would step down as chairman in January. Hurd now takes on the role of chairman of HP's board. HP also appointed Bart M. Schwartz, a former U.S. prosecutor, as board counsel. His role will be to perform an independent review of investigative methods and the company's Standards of Business Conduct processes, and to make future recommendations for implementing best practices. He will report to Hurd and HP Chief Financial Officer Bob Wayman. Hurd said that HP had the "best intentions" when it began the first of two phases of a probe into boardroom leaks, but said it "turned in a direction we could not have anticipated" and he takes full accountability for what transpired. "I take this very seriously and commit to getting to the bottom of this," he said. "Our job is to fix this and get back to the job of running the business." Hurd did not field reporter questions at the press conference, at which HP searched attendees' bags and did not allow video cameras. Hurd plans to appear at an U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing about HP's investigation on Thursday, Sept. 28., and said he did not want questions on Friday to interfere with that testimony. Mike Holston, a partner with law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, also spoke at the press conference on Friday. HP appointed the firm, which reports directly to Hurd, on Sept. 8 to investigate the tactics used by HP and third-party investigators in its probe. Holston said his firm has read more than 1 million pages of documents about two internal HP investigations -- called Kona 1 and Kona 2 -- and is still in the process of putting together the details of what took place. He declined to identify by name the people HP investigated. However, Holston did confirm that HP worked with two third-party organizations -- Security Outsourcing Services and Action Research Group -- to investigate employees, board members and/or former board members and their families, and journalists and their families. That investigation included physical surveillance, obtaining social security numbers of those being investigated to obtain phone records and the placement of e-mail tracing technology in an e-mail to one journalist, he said. Friday's news conference followed a steady stream of news reports over the last two weeks with revelations of actions HP and its outside investigators allegedly took to discover the source of company leaks to the media. Schemes allegedly considered included an attempt to plant spies inside the San Francisco newsrooms of The Wall Street Journal and CNET Networks Inc. posing as clerical workers or janitors, and a sting operation in which a fake anonymous source within HP would e-mail CNET reporter Dawn Kamamoto with a tip and track her e-mails to see if she contacted her other HP sources about the tip. Holston said Friday that while there was evidence that HP considered starting undercover operations in the newsrooms of the Journal and CNET, there is no evidence that such operations ever took place. He also confirmed that HP did try to track one reporterâs e-mail through tracing technology, but did not name the reporter involved and said there was no evidence at this time that the HP investigation team was aware that the tracer was activated.
461841
By Ian Watson  THE scandal that has erupted following the disclosure that Hewlett-Packard had been spying on some of its directors now appears to have  enveloped chief executive Mark Hurd.
563992
(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard Co.'s board of directors has leapt out of the mainstream with the recently disclosed scandal that's set members against each other, but changes over the past several years have made conflict on boards more likely. Boards have evolved from clubby groups of company executives and tight partners to more independent bodies, management experts said Friday. HP's messy fight, in which investigators hired by the board used possibly illegal techniques to uncover apparent leaks of confidential information by some directors, is a spectacle unto itself, they said. But directors are now more likely to call companies to account. "Boards have changed very dramatically in the last 20 years, and especially in the last 4 years," said Nell Minow, editor at The Corporate Library, a research company in Portland, Maine, that specializes in corporate governance. "There isn't a board in America that isn't much more active, much more vital, much more independent." Many boards used to be heavily laden with investment bankers and lawyers who worked for the company, and often had four or five company executives, said Harvard Business School professor Joseph Bower. That hasn't been true since at least the 1980s, as the percentage of independent members grew, he said. "I think boards are much more diligent ... than they were 15 to 20 years ago," said David Larcker, a professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. "In the process, there are controversies that didn't crop up back then." The probe of HP's board, though embarrassing, was probably necessary, The Corporate Library's Minow said. "They have not been a functional board," Minow said, criticizing the handling of former Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina's hiring and dismissal. Some of the leaks from the HP board involved discussions about Fiorina. It's hard for boards to work if there are leaks and directors don't trust each other, Minow said. Yet to find out who was leaking information, they unfortunately had to give the investigators a lot of independence. "I think they made the best of a very bad situation." The trend toward truly independent boards has accelerated with recent scandals and stepped-up regulation, Minow said. A key factor was out-of-court settlements of suits against Enron and WorldCom in recent years, in which directors who weren't involved in wrongdoing accepted some liability. "Those settlements shivered the timbers of every director in America," Minow said. Also in the past few years, companies that sell "director and officer" liability insurance have raised premiums on companies they thought didn't have enough oversight to prevent Enron-style legal meltdowns. In addition, the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations made boards more diligent by forcing companies to ensure proper oversight of accounting, cybersecurity and other issues, she said. However read, a drama like HP's is not unprecedented, according to Harvard's Bower. About 20 years ago, there was a succession battle at American Express that included leaks to the media, he said. He sees the latest board fight as another aberrant event rather than an outcome of boards becoming more independent. "Every once in a while, there are battles and people disagree strongly. And when people disagree strongly, sometimes they do silly things," Bower said.
567115
A former Hewlett-Packard Co.   HPQ.N board member has asked U.S. prosecutors, as well as   U.S. trade and communications regulators, to review an HP   investigation in which directors' and journalists' private   phone records were accessed.
85599
Remember the future Opinion "Now we know the depth of what has transpired, I take full accountability to drive the actions to set it right," said HP's CEO Mark Hurd yesterday at the company's spy scandal press conference.â¦
4982
California's criminal charges against former Hewlett-Packard Co. chairwoman Patricia Dunn and four associates have put the spotlight on privacy in the business world and could spark internal corporate reforms or even legislation to counter privacy abuses.
616104
By AP Wire Services  SAN JOSE, Calif.  -- Congress and federal investigators on Monday entered the fray surrounding Hewlett-Packard Co.'s possibly illegal probe of media leaks, as the company's board met to discuss the fate of its embattled chairwoman.    With the FBI, the U.S.
38234
A former Hewlett-Packard Co.   board member has asked U.S. prosecutors, as well as  U.S. trade and communications regulators, to review an HP  investigation in which directors' and journalists' private  phone records were accessed.
133287
PALO ALTO, California  - Hewlett-Packard Co.   HPQ.N Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd said he had approved   an e-mail ruse to track down boardroom leaks, admitting for the   first time his involvement in a scandal that also on Friday   forced out the company's chairman.
672963
(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard board of directors took no action at a special Sunday meeting and will reconvene late Monday to continueÂ discussions about the scandalÂ that has occupied the company over the past week. The board held a teleconference Sunday morning for several hours, according to a brief company statement issued Sunday afternoon, to discuss reports that outside investigators, acting on behalf of the board,Â obtained phone recordsÂ of directors and journalists to trace the source of information leaks regarding board meetings. The investigators' tactic of disguising their true identity in order to gain access to customer records, called "pretexting," may be in violation of the law and the California Attorney General's office is investigating the case. HP gave no reason in its statement for the move to adjourn Sunday's meeting to Monday. HP Board Chairman Patricia Dunn has been criticized for launching the investigation, including calls for her resignation. Dunn said she was "appalled" that the investigators engaged in pretexting but said that she was not told details of how they conducted their probe. While she has said that she won't resign on her own, she would step down if the board requested her to do so. The investigation determined that HP director George Keyworth was the source of a story CNet Networks Inc. story in January about HP's business strategy. When Keyworth was asked to resign from the board in May, he refused. But board member Thomas Perkins, a renowned Silicon Valley venture capitalist, resigned in protest over the way in which the investigation was conducted. Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd, in a letter to company employees released late Friday, urged them to keep focused on their work. "The media coverage and speculation regarding the recent actions of the HP Board ... have nothing to do with the strategy or operations of Hewlett-Packard," he said. Hurd, who emphasized that he was speaking as CEO and not as a board member, added: "There has been a long history of leaking company information with the HP board that clearly needs to be resolved."
673848
(InfoWorld) - Huge, ugly scandals have a way of planting new terms in the lexicon. Consider the way the Watergate affair of the early 1970s made -gate an all-purpose suffix denoting scandal, or the way last yearâs Sony digital rights management imbroglio made ârootkitâ an unlikely term heard around the dinner table. Thanks to Hewlett-Packardâs daring board of directors, weâve got another one: âpretexting,â which describes the technique of impersonating someone else to obtain personal information. In the case of HP, that personal information was the private phone records of board members and journalists, unknowingly caught up in an all-out effort by HP Chairwoman Pattie Dunn to plug press leaks at the company. Last week, HP announced a board shakeup to try to put the whole mess behind it, but it may be looking over its shoulder for some time, experts say. Dunn will relinquish her chair to CEO and President Mark Hurd in January. The scandal created two other board vacancies: director Thomas Perkins quit in protest last May over the companyâs investigation; and director George Keyworth, identified as the source of the leak, resigned the same day as Dunnâs announcement. At print time, Californiaâs Attorney General Bill Lockyer said that the state was working with authorities in Massachusetts and that he had the evidence he needs to indict people connected to the pretexting scandal both inside and outside of HP. The scandal is a teachable moment for American business, said Kirk O. Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. âIt is a cautionary tale about how companies conduct investigations into employee conduct and give direction to outside vendors,â Hanson said. This case will help them clarify what they can and cannot do to protect their interests. âExpect the word pretext to begin showing up in corporate handbooks,â Hanson said.
515283
By RACHEL KONRAD SAN FRANCISCO - Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairwoman Patricia Dunn is under scrutiny from business and ethics experts after she oversaw an invasive and possibly illegal effort to snoop into the home phone calls of fellow HP board members.
65831
By Jordan Robertson  SAN JOSE, Calif. - Hewlett-Packard Chairwoman Patricia Dunn took the fall Tuesday after admitting she authorized an investigation that relied on "inappropriate techniques" to uncover who was leaking boardroom secrets to the media.
240661
By JORDAN ROBERTSON  SAN JOSE, Calif. - Investors have largely shrugged off Hewlett-Packard Co.'s boardroom spying scandal, dismissing the brouhaha surrounding the company as immaterial to its day-to-day operations and stellar earnings growth in recent months.
419358
Piling it on HP today released a message from CEO Mark Hurd that vaguely addresses the company's ongoing spy scandal. The missive serves more as an advertisement than a real confrontation with the issues affecting HP.â¦
310204
Beware the Babbio The executives willing to testify about their roles in the HP spy scandal have claimed a blissful ignorance around the legal ins and outs of obtaining phone records. Their defense has hinged on the idea that they were assured by hired investigators that any phone snooping was legal and that they did not become really concerned about how phone records were obtained until learning of the euphemism "pretexting." Even after learning about pretexting, it took executives weeks to comprehend in full the fraud behind the practice.â¦