Report: Plea talks in HP case, new director named
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Defense and prosecution attorneys in theÂ Hewlett-Packard spying caseÂ are scheduled to meet with the presiding judge Dec. 4 to discuss possible plea bargains, the San Jose Mercury News reported Saturday.
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An attorney hired by Hewlett-Packard to investigate the conduct of HP and outside investigators has provided new details of his firm's investigation ofÂ news leaks from the HP board.
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Hunsaker also on list Patricia Dunn, the former chairman of HP, and four others are to face charges over The great HP Pretexting Fiasco.â¦
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Request comes as criminal charges still hang over the head of former HP chairman and others in connection with spying campaign.
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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.
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The U.S. Department of Justice is asking questions about conduct by Hewlett-Packard Co. that has embroiled the technology company in controversy.
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By Jordan Robertson  California's attorney general said Tuesday that Hewlett-Packard insiders are likely to face criminal charges, putting a damper on the news HP was reshuffling its board because of the scandal surrounding its efforts to root out media leaks.
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Hewlett-Packard Co.  is  under investigation by U.S. federal prosecutors over its  inquiry into boardroom leaks to the press, authorities said on  Monday, adding to the computer maker's legal woes.
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Dunn-leading Patricia Dunn, chairman of HP, will leave the position in January next year and be replaced by current CEO Mark Hurd. Dunn's position has been shaky since her role in the snooping scandal became public - Dunn hired private detectives to spy on directors and reporters.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard board members and journalists were under physical surveillance by investigators trying to find out who was providing information to reporters, and private investigators tried to put tracking software on a journalist's computer to keep tabs on e-mail, according to a New York Times report. Patricia Dunn, HP's chairman, the company's general counsel and a staff attorney oversaw the internalÂ investigation of news leaks, the Times reported, citing anonymous sources who have been briefed on HP's findings so far regarding the secret investigation. It isn't clear how much involvement in the investigation there was by Dunn and others at HP, the Times reported Monday. HP announced last week that Dunn willÂ step aside as chairmanÂ in January, although she will remain as a director. Two others also have resigned from the board in the wake of the scandal. Over the weekend, HP identified Michael Moeller, director of corporate media relations, as one of two HP employees who was targeted in the internal investigation. "Investigators' suspicions were misdirected and unfounded," Robert Sherbin, HP's vice president for external communications was quoted as telling the Times on Sunday. The internal investigation reportedly was conducted in two stages, with the first from January 2005 to August of that year, which came up with nothing to go on, and then a second phase beginning in January 2006 after the technology news site of CNET NetworksÂ posted an article about an HP senior management meeting held that month. The board first clamored for an investigation into leaks of information to journalists in January 2005 following an article in The Wall Street Journal that spoke of board discussions regarding management reorganization and changes in the responsibilities to be handled by Carly Fiorina, who was then chief executive officer and chairman. She was ousted by the board in February 2005. Within days of that board action, The New York Times published a detailed account of a directors' meeting that was crucial to her ouster. Reporters from the Times, the Journal, CNET and Business Week have been informed by the California attorney general's office that HP investigated them. California and federal authorities are investigating HP's conduct and the California attorney general has said that charges are likely. HP has admitted that its the private investigative firm it hired used "pretexting," with investigators pretending to be journalists in order to obtain their personal telephone records. Even after a summary of the internal investigation was presented to leaders at HP, in Palo Alto, California, those in charge were unaware that possibly illegal methods had been used to obtain information, the Times reported. In May, the investigation's findings were relayed to the board of directors, including the allegation that its longest-running member, George Keyworth, was the source of the leaks to journalists. He refused to resign, but Vice Chairman Thomas Perkins, an influential and important Silicon Valley venture capitalist, was incensed over the probe and quit the board. He then turned his attention to pressuring Dunn to resign. His surprising departure was announced in a mildly worded HP statement that offered no clue as to the fractious nature of what had transpired, details of which began to emerge in news accounts earlier this month.
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By The Associated Press  Hewlett-Packard Co.'s board of directors:  - Patricia Dunn, director since 1998, chairwoman since 2005. Will step down in January after orchestrating the internal investigation of media leaks that has prompted state and federal investigations.
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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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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd knew of plans for a disinformation campaign designed to find the source ofÂ leaks from boardroom discussions, The Washington Post reported Thursday. The report implicates Hurd more deeply in the scandal than was previously believed. The HP CEO and President is set toÂ replace Patricia DunnÂ as chairman of the company's board of directors in January. Dunn said she would step down Sept. 12 as the result of an internal investigation into practices used to find the source of news leaks about matters discussed by the board. The disinformation campaign was designed to uncover the source of the leaks by creating a phony HP insider who would gain the trust of a reporter, feed her false information, and in the process place a software tracer on her e-mail using an attachment, according to e-mails obtained by the Post. The nonexistent insider's persona was created by HP Senior Counsel Kevin Hunsaker and an unnamed HP colleague of Hunsaker's in Boston, it said. None of the e-mails are from or to Hurd, but refer to his knowledge or approval of various actions, the report said. The Post did not say how it obtained the "more than two dozen" e-mails. HP declined to comment or to make Hurd available for an interview. Some of the e-mails were sent by Dunn, such as a Feb. 9 e-mail to Hunsaker and HP's General Counsel Ann O. Baskins. Dunn wrote, "I spoke with Mark and he is on board with the plan to use the info on new handheld [device]," the report said. The company had planned to feed the journalist information about an upcoming handheld product to help tease out the source of the leaks, the Post said. In a Feb. 22 e-mail to Hunsaker, Dunn wrote, "Kevin, I think this is very clever. As a matter of course anything that is going to potentially be seen outside HP should have Mark's approval as well," the report said. Dunn is referring to a slide of phony products Hunsaker had created to pass off to the reporter as inside information. Hunsaker sent an e-mail to Dunn on Feb. 23, stating, "FYI, I spoke to Mark a few minutes ago and he is fine with both the concept and the content," the report said. The Wall Street Journal also reported Thursday that it had seen internal HP emails suggesting that Hurd was closer to the leaks investigation than had previously been thought. HP's investigation into the leaks, and potential illegal conduct that may have occurred as part of it, will be the subject ofÂ House Subcommittee meetingÂ Sept. 28. Dunn and others areÂ scheduled to testifyÂ voluntarily regarding their role in and knowledge of the investigation and its methods. An outside private investigation firm hired by HP to look into the boardroom leaks may haveÂ illegally obtained the phone recordsÂ of HP employees, nine journalists who had written about the company, and some of its own board members. The use of a technique called pretexting, in which people disguise their identity in order to obtain private information about others, is at issue. So far the scandal has led to the resignation of two HP board members, along with Dunn saying she will step down as chairman in January.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. -- A Congressional committee on Monday asked Hewlett-Packard Co. to turn over records related to the company's possibly illegal investigation of media leaks, as the company's board planned to meet again to discuss the fate of embattled Chairwoman Patricia Dunn.
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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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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-PackardÂ is commenting little on a published report that the HP board is dropping Larry Sonsini as its primary outside legal counsel. "HP continues to have a relationship with Wilson Sonsini," HP spokeswoman Emma Wischhusen said Thursday afternoon, referring only to the name of the Palo Alto, California, law firm of which Sonsini is chairman. TheÂ New York Times reported ThursdayÂ that HP plans to replace Larry Sonsini as outside legal counsel to the board next year. Sonsini figured in theÂ spying scandalÂ that has embroiled the technology company this year. The board hired outside private investigators to find the source of leaks about board deliberations to the media. The private investigators used a tactic called "pretexting," using false pretenses to obtain the personal phone records of directors, HP employees and journalists. Sonsini's advice was cited in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing Sept. 6 from HP. The company's outside legal counsel, HP stated, advised the board that pretexting "was not generally unlawful ... but such counsel could not confirm that the techniques employed by the (private investigators) complied in all respects with applicable law." Three private investigators, former HP legal counsel Kevin Hunsaker and former HP chairman Patricia Dunn have been charged with breaking California laws over their roles in the spying case. They await trial on four felony counts each. Larry Sonsini was one of several witnesses called to testify Sept. 28 before a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee probing the pretexting scandal. A representative of the law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, did not return a call seeking comment.
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(InfoWorld) - Two key figures in theÂ Hewlett-Packard spying scandalÂ will give their sides of the story in interviews on the CBS News program "60 Minutes" on Sunday. Patricia Dunn, former chairman of the technology company who was charged with four felonies in California, and Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive officer, president and chairman, gave separate interviews on the subject, according to information released by CBS Friday. In her interview, Dunn says companies conduct such investigations often. "Every company has investigations. Investigations, by their nature, are intrusive," Dunn tells "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl. "If you think that Hewlett-Packard is the only company that has an investigations force -- which by the way, is peopled mostly with former law enforcement officers that do all kinds of private detective work, monitoring, posing as other people in order to solve problems to protect shareholder value -- you're being naÃ¯ve." Dunn tells Stahl she is innocent of the charges she and four others connected to the case are facing: using false pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility, unauthorized access of computer data, identity theft and conspiracy. Four other people face the same charges. Dunn made a brief court appearance Thursday in Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose and will return to court Nov. 17 for an arraignment. HP is based in Palo Alto, which is also in Santa Clara County. Fiorina was also interviewed by Stahl to promote her book about her HP days, "Tough Choices: A Memoir," which is to be released next week. Fiorina says she was "shocked" to discover the lengths to which investigators allegedly went to probe the source of HP leaks to the media, including the use of pretexting -- using false pretenses -- to gain access to phone records of people who were targets of the investigation. "Well, I mean, I was shocked to hear about the depth and the range of some of those tactics and -- and shocked to hear that I might have been the subject of some of them," Fiorina said. Documents released Wednesday by the California Attorney General's Office show that Fiorina's phone records were among those accessed by private investigators via pretexting. Dunn, who succeeded Fiorina as chairman after Fiorina's firing in March 2005, launched an investigation to find the source of leaks of board deliberations prior to Fiorina's firing. Dunn authorized a second probe in 2006 after a news report in January that quoted an anonymous source on HP's board. Fiorina says in the "60 Minutes" interview that she sought to find the source of news leaks when she was chairman, but that was limited compared to what has been alleged under Dunn's chairmanship. "I wouldn't call what I did when I was faced with a leak -- I wouldn't even call it an investigation. I would call it a series of conversations with people. The reality is I knew very well who had talked outside the boardroom. Only one of the people who talked outside of the boardroom confessed. But, I knew who had done it. They knew who -- they had done it and so did everyone else on the board," Fiorina says, according to a release from CBS News.