California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and Hewlett-Packard yesterday announced that they have reached a settlement, which will likely end the Attorney General’s investigation into the role the company and its remaining directors and officers played in HP’s identity and privacy ethical failures. The company will pay $13.5 million, “hire an independent director, and expand the duties of its chief ethics officer and chief privacy officer.”
The Attorney General’s case against HP did only involve a civil complaint, so it likely would have ultimately ended up with a financial settlement and some sort of compromised “corrective” measures like we see here, but I really think this is an injustice for the people who had their identities and privacy compromised, and for HP shareholders in the long run. The evidence that senior executives at HP, potentially including Mark Hurd, either ignored or were ignorant of the ongoing, “probably illegal” actions is pretty well documented, and pretty overwhelming.
Patricia Dunn took much of the public blame for this, and that’s unfortunate for her and for HP. It seems to me like she should have had a better grip on what was happening at HP, but it doesn’t seem to me like she should have been the only one with that responsibility. A full, objective, and independent investigation should have been the first thing on everybody’s list. Instead, this case is now settled, Congress has moved on, and Dunn will be focussed on proving her innocence.
The unfortunate thing for Mark Hurd is that his level of responsibility and accountability wasn’t determined in this process. The second HP hits a performance blip, this scandal will be the first thing on every shareholder’s mind when they’re thinking of who to blame. When that day comes, I would not want to be in Mark Hurd’s shoes.
on Dec 11th, 2006 at 06:19
i heard that dunn might settle the case with the california ag. i guess the others would follow her lead. then we never would find out what went wrong at HP.