HP Investors Unruffled By Settlement; Stock Steady After Accord Reached in Spying Lawsuit
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By JORDAN ROBERTSON   Associated Press writer  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.
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U.S. stocks were little changed on   Wednesday as crude oil prices rose, boosting shares of energy   companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM.N, while investors were   concerned about potential litigation at computer maker   Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ.N over a leak investigation.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. _ Hewlett-Packard agreed today to pay $14.5 million to settle civil claims brought by the California attorney general's office, also today, arising from the company's board-spying scandal.
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U.S. blue-chip stocks fell on Wednesday after higher-than-expected inflation data dented hopes for an interest-rate cut and technology bellwether Hewlett-Packard Co.  failed to impress investors with its latest earnings report.
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By Therese Poletti; Ryan Blitstein  Hewlett-Packard agreed today to pay $14.5 million to settle civil claims brought by the California attorney general's office, also today, arising from the company's board-spying scandal.
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Hewlett-Packard Co. agreed to pay California $14.5 million to settle state civil claims over its eavesdropping scandal.
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Hewlett-Packard Co., a leading maker of personal computers and printers, has agreed to pay &#36;141 million to settle patent disputes with software maker Intergraph Corp., both companies announced Friday.
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European stock markets held steady in early deals as disappointing news from US chipmaker Intel after the close of trading in New York offset a rally on Wall Street overnight, dealers said.
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(InfoWorld) - All's still not well in the higher echelons of Hewlett-PackardÂ as revealed in a filing the company made to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC). The brouhaha relates to the sudden andÂ unexpected resignationÂ of Silicon Valley venture capitalist Thomas Perkins from HP's board of directors in May. The co-founder of leading IT investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Perkins has strong ties to HP dating back to the 1960s when he ran the company's research department and including a previous stint on HP's board of directors from 2002 to 2004. Back in May, HP provided no reason for Perkins' resignation, but according to an 8-K filing HP made to the SEC Wednesday, he quit over concerns with the HP board's handling of investigations into leaks of confidential information. In the filing, HP confirms that the company has suffered "multiple leaks of confidential HP information," including information relating to the closed-door deliberations of its board, dating back to at least 2005. To try and stem the leaks and identify the culprit, HP turned to an external legal counsel who interviewed the board's directors in early 2005 and got each of them to recommit to their duty of confidentiality. The interviews didn't turn up the party responsible and the leaks continued. So, HP brought in an external specialized investigations firm which revealed that George Keyworth, an HP director since 1986, has been disclosing board deliberations and other confidential information to the media without authorization. Keyworth acknowledged he had leaked information at a board meeting on May 18 and the board asked him to resign. Keyworth refused to do so and at that point Perkins announced his own resignation, citing "personal frustration" with the chairman of the board in how the whole leaks investigation had been handled, the filing said. Perkins didn't like the matter being aired before the entire board and had believed he and HP Nonexecutive Chairman Patricia Dunn would handle the matter privately. On June 19, Perkins sought information from HP about the methods used to conduct the investigations into the leaks. According to the filing, he "asserted that phone and e-mail communications had been improperly recorded as part of the investigation." HP responded that there had been no recording or eavesdropping, but admitted "that some form of 'pretexting' for phone record information, a technique used by investigators to obtain information by disguising their identity, had been used." In pretexting, investigators call a phone company and use personal information to pretend to be someone else so as to gain access to that individual's phone records. After receiving the HP response, Perkins asked HP's nominating and governance committee to carry out an inquiry into whether the techniques used to conduct the investigation were appropriate. The vendor went ahead and engaged outside counsel, not previously involved in the earlier inquiries, to conduct such an investigation. The counsel discovered that a third party retained by the external consulting firm HP brought in to investigate the leaks "had in some cases employed pretexting." Such a practice, at that time, was not generally illegal, the counsel reported, but added that it "could not confirm that the techniques employed by the outside consulting firm and the party retained by that firm complied in all respects with applicable law." As a result, the HP committee recommended that controls relating to investigations be strengthened and that HP management ensure that all aspects of HP's investigations do comply with both applicable laws and HP's code of ethics. HP's board and Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd have accepted the committee's conclusions. The U.S. Attorney General of the State of California has asked HP to supply information about the processes used in the leak investigation. "HP intends to cooperate fully with that inquiry," the vendor said in the filing. The SEC has also been in touch over the 8-K filing HP made when Perkins resigned, but the vendor has responded that it believes its disclosures back in May were "accurate and complete." In an Aug. 31 meeting, HP's board of directors determined that Keyworth shouldn't be nominated for another term on the board. According to a Wall Street Journal report, former HP Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina was deeply angered by the leaks since they revealed a gulf between her position and that of some of the company's board. She was laterÂ ousted from HPÂ in early 2005 and isÂ due to tell her side of the story in a bookÂ titled "Tough Choices" out in October.
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All's still not well in the higher echelons of Hewlett-PackardÂ as revealed in a filing the company made to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).
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Investor's Business Daily - A week after shaking up its enterprise hardware business following a poor showing last quarter, Hewlett-Packard put its best face forward before more than 7,000 customers and partners at the HP World conference in Chicago.
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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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UK blue chips were hardly changed at the close after Wall Street fluctuated, pleased about declining oil prices and Home Depot Inc.&#39;s stock-repurchase plan but hesitant as the direction of bond yields remained uncertain.
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The company's shares have recovered from legal settlement sticker shock.
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Hewlett-Packard Co settled claims on Wednesday with four reporters at the heart of a scandal involving claims that the world's biggest PC maker engaged in corporate espionage to plug a boardroom leak.
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U.S. stocks closed near the unchanged  mark on Monday as investors took a breath following significant  gains in the market so far this month, while lower oil prices  weighed on energy shares, including Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM.N.
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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.