Investigator vowed tactics legal, HP says
112442
Hewlett-Packard Co. yesterday said a Needham private investigator assured the computer maker its investigative methods were legal, then apparently used ``pretexting," or lying, to obtain phone and fax records of 18 company board members, employees, and journalists.
13476
By Pete Carey, MEDIA NEWS  California's attorney general said today his office has enough evidence in the Hewlett-Packard boardroom leak scandal to indict people inside the company on criminal charges.
480080
Hewlett-Packard Co.   recently "stonewalled" California's probe into the company, but  now has expressed willingness to cooperate, a spokesman for the  state's attorney general said on Thursday.
162534
NEW YORK -- Investigators for Hewlett-Packard Co. sought private telephone records of board members while hunting for leaks to the media of confidential company information, the computer maker said in a regulatory filing Wednesday.
226367
California Attorney General Bill   Lockyer said his office has enough evidence to obtain   indictments of people within Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ.N and of   hired contractors, after the company disclosed questionable   tactics in a boardroom leak investigation.
201017
Spy in our state, will you? It's looking less and less likely that HP will be able to fend off all of the legal issues around its spy scandal on the third parties it hired to investigate employees, directors, reporters and reporters' relatives.â¦
704393
(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.
95038
State says it has made a deal with PC maker over civil charges related to methods used in an HP leak investigation.
382536
(InfoWorld) - Several people connected to the Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) board scandal have been invited to testify at a U.S. House subcommittee hearing Sept. 28 on the issue ofÂ pretexting to get confidential phone records. Patricia Dunn, chairman of HP's board, and Ann Baskins, HP's general counsel, have been invited to testify at a hearing of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in Washington, D.C. Also invited to testify is Larry Sonsini, lead outside counsel for HP, and Ronald DeLia, managing director of Security Outsourcing Solutions Inc., a Needham, Massachusetts, corporate security company identified as having been hired by HP to investigate who on the board leaked news of a confidential strategy session to the media. HP and outside firms it hired to conduct the investigation are facingÂ possible criminal charges in California for using pretexting to surreptitiously gain access to the personal phone records of HP directors and nine journalists. Dunn has agreed to resign as chairman come January as a result of her role in the investigation, but will remain on the board. Sonsini, chairman of the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, advised HP on the legality of its investigation of the leaks. The committee is considering federal legislation to outlaw pretexting in the U.S. and put other limits on the work of so-called data brokers who gather information for clients. Sometimes their means are duplicitous, such as impersonating an individual to gain unauthorized access to confidential records. HP is being investigated by the Attorneys General of California and Massachusetts, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney's office for actions it took to investigate the board leaks that may have violated the law. Terry Lane, a spokesman for the House committee, said the witnesses have not been subpoenaed to testify but could not say what the committee might do if they declined the invitation. Although HP has said it is willing to cooperate on investigations into the pretexting case, spokesman Mike Moeller said the company would not comment specifically on whether Dunn and Baskins would accept the invitation to testify. Neither of the others responded to a request for comment. Â
104547
A US attorney general is investigating methods used by Hewlett Packard to spy on senior members of staff.
712197
California's attorney general is preparing to file criminal complaints today against ousted Hewlett-Packard Co. chairman Patricia C. Dunn and four others for their roles in the Hewlett-Packard Co. spying operation that surfaced last month, according to sources close to the case.
377685
By Ross Kerber, The Boston Globe  Sep. 18--Needham private investigator Ronald R. DeLia is cooperating with  probes of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s conduct, his attorney said yesterday.
438390
Documents offer new details of HP's leak hunt, including info Patricia Dunn shared with private investigators.
139388
Claiming innocence of the sleazy tactics investigators used to gather information on company board members and reporters, HP's Patricia Dun tries to keep her job.
601264
SAN JOSE, Calif. _ California's attorney general said Tuesday his office has enough evidence in the Hewlett-Packard boardroom leak scandal to indict people inside the company on criminal charges.
40187
Hewlett-Packard found itself under increased legal and political scrutiny over the use of private investigators to trace the source of news leaks in the board.
449643
California Attorney General Bill  Lockyer said his office has enough evidence to obtain  indictments of people within Hewlett-Packard Co.  and of  hired contractors, after the company disclosed questionable  tactics in a boardroom leak investigation.