HP Is A Mess
For those of you that have not heard about the recent board scuffles at Hewlett Packard, check out the following articles:
- Leak, Inquiry and Resignation Rock a Boardroom
- A Board in Need of an Emily Post
- H.P. Spied on Directors to Find Leak
- State Probes HP’s Spying on Directors
- Hewlett-Packard under investigation in spying scandal
- `Pretexting’ by Hewlett-Packard’s hired investigators could be considered illegal
I find the news particularly troubling simply for the fact that I am saddened to see such behavior going on at a company that I used to admire so much (it has been quite a few years…). To make matters worse, I feel that Mark Hurd has been, for the most part, doing a great job at turning the company around after Fiorina’s ouster. This news, complete with questionable actions, information leaks, governance quandaries and general grime, will certainly set the company back.
Relevance:
How does this mess speak to ethics or corporate governance? First, the legality of Patricia Dunn’s authorization for surveillance of HP’s directors has been questioned. Apparently legal counsel was sought prior to the authorization, however, there are a number of privacy issues that come into play. (ARS Technica has an excellent overview of what was involved in the surveillance.)
Further, I find it curious that the surveillance was authorized by a member of the board and not an independent committee. What if Dunn was also a source of the leaks? A second investigation launched in January was handled by HP’s office of general counsel but why not have all of the investigations go through the same channel?
Are these recent incidents the actions of a mature and ethical company with a strong corporate governance structure? Were the leaks breaches of fiduciary duty (I believe so) and why were they not handled in a more appropriate manner more in line with HP’s governance setup? What does all of this tell HP shareholders about the company’s leadership?
TAGS: This entry was posted on Thursday, September 7th, 2006 at 1:35 pm and is filed under Business Ethics, Corporate Governance, Interesting News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.