HP says chairman has no plans to resign over leaks investigation
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Hewlett-Packard Co. said Chairman Patricia Dunn was unaware of tactics used in an investigation into boardroom leaks to reporters. Meanwhile, reports say the California attorney general is likely to bring criminal charges.
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A Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ.N   director said on Wednesday Chief Executive Mark Hurd has the   full support of the board and that there have been no   discussions whether Hurd might resign amid the controversy over   the company's investigation into boardroom leaks.
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Hewlett-Packard Co.'s board will file a statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, notifying investors that the computer maker's board will refuse to nominate one director for re-election because he leaked confidential information to the media.
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(InfoWorld) - Embattled Hewlett-Packard chairman Patricia Dunn told an appreciative audience in San Francisco Wednesday night that she looks forward to the opportunity to "set the record straight" regarding allegations that she oversaw anÂ internal investigation of the companyÂ which may have broken the law. Dunn made the remarks during a previously scheduled event where she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of a group of San Francisco Bay Area government and business leaders. An audience of about 800 people at The Westin St. Francis hotel on San Francisco's famed Union Square, gave Dunn a standing ovation. "All I will say about the maelstrom ofÂ  recent unwelcome attention is that I look forward eagerly to the time in the near future when I will be permitted to set the record straight," she said. Dunn was honored by the Bay Area Council for her success in business and her philanthropic work. Besides being chairman of HP, she was vice chairman of Barclay's Global Investors. Dunn also is on the board of a nonprofit program helping troubled youth in San Francisco and a program for providing health care to the poor in Oakland, California. The audience was largely supportive. "I think she was courageous" to appear, said Lynette Busby after the speech while her husband, James, added, "she hasn't been convicted of anything and in America that's important. She is a very forthright person." But there was some criticism. "I think it's unbelievably arrogant of [the council] to select her when she is under anÂ egregious cloud of suspicion," said one local attorney who declined to be identified. Even though she was chosen for the Hall of Fame before the scandal broke, the honor should have been withdrawn, he said. She and others involved are accused of "doing things that are contrary to the best values of America." Dunn also tried to make light of her situation. While she said she wanted to set the record straight, she added, "and in the meantime it wouldn't hurt if the pope would continue to make controversy." Dunn is one of several people who have agreed to appear at aÂ Sept. 28 hearingÂ of a House Subcommittee probing allegations that HP hired private investigators to determine which of its board members were leaking news of board deliberations to the media. The investigators allegedlyÂ obtained private phone recordsÂ of board members, some HP employees, and reporters under false pretenses to determine the source of the leak, a tactic called pretexting. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is considering federal legislation to outlaw pretexting. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is investigating the possibility ofÂ filing state chargesÂ against people implicated in the scandal. Dunn was forced to announce Sept. 12 that she will resign in January from the chairmanship of the HP board, although she will remain a director, amid news reports about her role in ordering an investigation of the board media leaks. She has stated she did not know outside investigators were using pretexting and that she kept a distance from the investigation, but a Wall Street Journal article Wednesday, based on an internal HP report, indicated she may have been more involved in the probe than she indicated earlier.
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A Hewlett-Packard Co.  director said on Wednesday Chief Executive Mark Hurd has the full support of the board and that there have been no discussions whether Hurd might resign amid the controversy over the company's investigation into boardroom leaks.
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard has entered into mutual agreements with two former directors caught up in theÂ board spying scandalÂ not to file lawsuits over the dispute. The company disclosed the agreement in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. In the same filing, HP said it has agreed to pay some of the directors' legal expenses in connection with the investigations. The SEC has asked for more information on the circumstances surroundingÂ Thomas Perkins' resignationÂ from HP's board of directors over the spying scandal, HP said in the filing. HP also revealed the terms under which Perkins and directorÂ George Keyworth left the board. They resigned after it was revealed that private investigators hired by HP may haveÂ used illegal methodsÂ to identify Keyworth as the source of leaks of board deliberations to the news media. Separately on Thursday, HP said chief executive officer Mark Hurd "has offered to appear" before a House subcommittee probing the scandal. Other HP executives, Chairman Patricia Dunn and others implicated in the scandal haveÂ accepted invitations to appearÂ at a Sept. 28 hearing. HP said in the SEC filing that it has entered into a "Mutual Release and Indemnification Agreement" with Perkins and Keyworth in which the two former directors agreed not to file claims against other directors, officers or employees of HP. In turn, the company agreed not file claims against them. HP will also pay legal fees Perkins and Keyworth may incur in cooperating with government investigations of the scandal. Besides the House inquiry, the California Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney for Northern California are conducting probes. The SEC filing also said Perkins and Keyworth reserve the right to take legal action against private investigation companies that HP allegedly hired to probe the source of board leaks. HP told the SEC on Sept. 6 that it had discovered those outside firms engaged in a possibly illegal practice called "pretexting" while digging into the personal phone records of directors, HP employees and journalists. The investigators' probe identified Keyworth as the confidential source. He initially refused to resign when confronted by the board in May, but he quit on Sept. 12. HP also said in the filing that it is cooperating with an SEC request for additional information about the circumstances of Perkins' resignation in May. HP's SEC filing at that time noted Perkins' resignation without elaborating. Perkins, who said he resigned in protest of the way HP was conducting its investigation, later lobbied the company to amend its notice with more detail. Hurd is set to lead a news conference Friday at HP headquarters in Palo Alto, California, to reveal the results of a separate investigation of HP's leak probe. After the scandal broke and reports surfaced about how involved HP executives may have been in overseeing the private investigators' activities, HP brought in the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius to investigate. A representative of the firm will present its findings at the news conference. News reports in recent days have revealed Hurd, Dunn and other HP executives were moreÂ involved in the leak probeÂ than they had earlier indicated. Â
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By Pete Carey, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Sep. 18--Hewlett-Packard delivered a stack of documents to Congress today  related to its boardroom-leak probe, in advance of hearings later this month  to take testimony from HP's chairman and top inside and outside lawyers.
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Risks still remain for Hewlett-Packard Co.  in the wake of its board leak investigation scandal even as Mark Hurd's job at the helm of the No. 2 computer maker appears secure, analysts said.
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U.S. lawmakers said Hewlett-Packard   Co. HPQ.N relied on scant legal backing to obtain private   telephone records in a probe of boardroom leaks, as three   former executives refused to testify on Thursday about the   company investigation.
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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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Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ.N Chief   Executive Mark Hurd told lawmakers on Thursday there were no   excuses for a probe of boardroom leaks that led investigators   to obtain private telephone records deceptively.
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A spokesman from the California attorney general's office Friday said that Attorney General Bill Lockyer at this point does not have any evidence to charge Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) Chief Executive Officer and President Mark Hurd with a criminal offense in the ongoing investigation intoÂ HP's probe of journalists and board members.
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By Pete Carey, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Sep. 18--Hewlett-Packard faces a deadline today to provide Congress with  documents about its boardroom-leak probe, which is under criminal  investigation by the California attorney general.
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(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
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By Purva Patel and Anastasia Ustinova, Houston Chronicle  Sep. 19--It was all about business at Hewlett-Packard's technology forum in Houston on Monday, despite the continuing fallout over a company-ordered investigation of board members to find the source of leaks to reporters.
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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.
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By Jordan Robertson Associated Press  SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard Chairwoman Patricia Dunn will step down in January and be succeeded by CEO Mark Hurd amid a widening scandal involving the computer and printer company's possibly illegal probe into media leaks.