Settlement Expected of Civil Charges in HP Spying Case: STATE PROSECUTORS EXPECTED TO ANNOUNCEMENT TODAY
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By Ryan Blitstein, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Dec. 7--The California attorney general's office will announce this afternoon it has reached a civil settlement with Hewlett-Packard regarding the computing company's board-spying scandal, CNET News.com has reported.
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Hewlett-Packard Co. agreed to a $14.5 million settlement in the California civil lawsuit related to the company's spying scandal.
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, a former company lawyer, and three outside investigators wereÂ charged Wednesday in CaliforniaÂ on felony charges related to the conduct of an investigationÂ to track down news leaks from the HP board that allegedly broke state law. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office said charges have also been filed against Kevin Hunsaker, a former senior lawyer at HP; Ronald L. DeLia, a Boston-area private detective; Matthew DePante, manager of Action Research Group, a Melbourne, Florida, information broker; and Bryan Wagner, a Littleton, Colorado, man who is said to have obtained private phone records while working for Action Research. TheÂ charges were announced at a press conference held Wednesday at the California Department of Justice. The charges include using false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy to commit each of those crimes. All of the charges are felonies. "One of our state's most venerable corporate institutions lost its way as its board sought to find out who leaked confidential information to the press," said Lockyer in a statement, released Wednesday. "In this misguided effort, people inside and outside of HP violated privacy rights and broke state law." Lockyer's office has been investigating the spying allegations because HP is based in Palo Alto, California. The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been conducting separate investigations of HP. In a statement released Wednesday in advance of the Sacramento press conference, HP said it was continuing to cooperate with state and federal investigators. The private investigators hired by HP allegedly used "pretexting," pretending to be someone they are not, to obtain the telephone records of HP directors, other employees and journalists who cover the company in an attempt to find out who from the board provided information to the reporters. The scandal has attracted the attention of the U.S. Congress.Â On Sept. 28,Â Dunn told the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that she believed employees and lawyers who said that the HP's leak investigation complied with the company's standards of conduct. The subcommittee was holding hearings into the use of pretexting. The committee passed a federal ban on pretexting but the Congress adjourned before the full House or the Senate voted on the legislation. When questioned about the techniques used to track down the leaks arose in the latter part of the investigation, Dunn said, she passed concerns to company Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd. Before then, the company's lawyers had assured her the techniques were being done "legally and properly," she said. "At no time in the investigation did I authorize its methods," Dunn said. "I asked this to be done in the HP standard way." On his part, Hurd told the subcommittee that he was not aware of the details of the techniques being used. He said he did not read a report from the investigating team that detailed the use of pretexting. Ann Baskins,Â who resigned right before the subcommittee hearing as HP's senior vice president and general counsel, and Hunsaker both asserted their rights not to testify under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution during the hearing. Also taking the fifth before the subcommittee were Delia, Wagner and Action Research owner Joe DePante. Dunn faces these criminal charges at a difficult time in her personal life. Dunn, is scheduled to begin chemotherapy Friday for a recurrence of advanced ovarian cancer, according to a Wednesday report in the San Jose Mercury News. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2004 and had been treated for breast cancer and melanoma dating back to 2001, the paper reported. (Stephen Lawson and Robert McMillan contributed to this story) Â
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Hewlett-Packard Co. said on Thursday it reached a civil settlement with the California attorney general's office related to its board-leak investigation that ultimately led to the departure of its former chairman.
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Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn will answer questions on the spying scandal that has embroiled her company during a House committee hearing on Capitol Hill next week.
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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 agrees to pay $14.5m to settle a lawsuit over its much-criticised probe into a boardroom leak.
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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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Calif. attorney general is expected to file charges Wednesday against Patricia Dunn and four others, according to news reports.
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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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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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Former Hewlett-Packard Co.   Chairman Patricia Dunn is due to surrender to  authorities on Thursday afternoon on felony charges for spying  on reporters and company directors, the California attorney  general's office said.
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As scandal over HP methods mushrooms, House plans investigatory hearings; company reps will likely be called to testify.
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Arraignment dates were set Thursday for former HP chairman Patricia Dunn and former HP lawyer Kevin Hunsaker on felony charges in the HP board scandal.
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As expected, Hewlett-Packard and the California state attorney general's office have reached a settlement in a civil suit pertaining to the company's methods in investigating its own board members. The company will pay the state $14.5 million, and in exchange, the state has agreed to an injunction against it pursuing any further civil matters against its employees, executives, directors, or the company itself.
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(110 sec.) An update on the major players in the Hewlett-Packard spying scandal.
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(InfoWorld) - U.S. legislators signalled Thursday that they will hold Hewlett-Packard's feet to the fire during House testimony on the company'sÂ pretexting scandal, while former General Counsel Ann Baskins formally declined to answer any questions by invoking her Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination. BaskinsÂ resigned her positionÂ Thursday, effective immediately. Subsequent witnesses including outside investigator Ronald DeLia, of the investigation firm Security Outsourcing Solutions, were also refusing to testify at press time based on their Fifth Amendment rights. HP's use of detectives whoÂ obtained people's telephone recordsÂ under false pretenses while investigating press leaks from its board will be in the spotlight. The matter caught the attention of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, some of whose members have been activelyÂ promoting legislationÂ that would explicitly criminalize tactics such as those used in the HP investigation. The actions taken by HP were "not the act of one rogue employee," said Representative Jay Inslee of Washington state, indicating that at least some of the politicians might not accept the characterization of the events at HP that its chief is set to offer before the subcommittee. In a written version of his testimony made available earlier, President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd called the scandal the result of aÂ "rogue investigation." Inslee and Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee have co-authored legislation that would prohibit the obtaining of customer information from telecommunications carriers by false pretenses, and the sale or disclosure of such records obtained by false pretenses. In her opening remarks Blackburn, a Republican, called pretexting a purposeful effort to deceive and defraud in order to get information one is not entitled to have. "How prevalent is it in the corporate boardroom?" she asked. Criminalization of pretexting needs to extend to all forms of telecommunications, said Representative Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, adding that legislation must address records ranging from conventional telecom through mobile and Internet telephony. She called for a "comprehensive legislative approach" to cover all sectors where pretexting could occur.