No Decision at Sunday HP Board Meeting

Hewlett-Packard’s board of directors took no action at a special Sunday meeting and will reconvene late Monday to continue discussions about the scandal that has occupied the company over the past week.

The board held a teleconference Sunday morning for several hours, according to a brief company statement issued Sunday afternoon, to discuss reports that outside investigators, acting on behalf of the board, obtained phone records of directors and journalists to trace the source of information leaks regarding board meetings.

The investigators’ tactic of disguising their true identity in order to gain access to customer records, called “pretexting,” may be in violation of the law, and the California attorney general’s office is investigating the case.

HP gave no reason in its statement for the move to adjourn Sunday’s meeting to Monday.

HP board Chairwoman Patricia Dunn has been criticized for launching the investigation, even getting calls for her resignation. Dunn said she was “appalled” that the investigators engaged in pretexting but said that she was not told details of how they conducted their probe. While she has said that she won’t resign on her own, she would step down if the board requested her to do so.

The investigation determined that HP Director George Keyworth was the source of a CNet Networks story in January about HP’s business strategy. When Keyworth was asked to resign from the board in May, he refused. But board member Thomas Perkins, a renowned Silicon Valley venture capitalist, resigned in protest over the way the investigation was conducted.

HP Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd, in a letter to company employees released late Friday, urged them to keep focused on their work. “The media coverage and speculation regarding the recent actions of the HP Board … have nothing to do with the strategy or operations of Hewlett-Packard,” he said.

Hurd, who emphasized that he was speaking as CEO and not as a board member, added: “There has been a long history of leaking company information with the HP board that clearly needs to be resolved.”

-Robert Mullins, IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)

Related Links:

• HP Obtained Reporters’ Phone Records in Probe

• HP Filing Reveals Board Infighting, Leaks

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