HP files civil complaint against former CEO Hurd

By on Sep 7, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Business September 7, 2010

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HP has filed a civil complaint against embattled CEO Mark Hurd, alleging that the former chief can not fully perform his newly assigned duties with employer Oracle without divulging HP’s trade secrets. Hurd received a severance package from HP which is estimated to be worth roughly $26 million. An excerpt from HP’s civil complaint reads as follows:

Despite being paid millions of dollars in cash, stock and stock options in exchange for Hurd’s agreements to protect HP’s trade secrets and confidential information during his employment and following his departure from his positions at HP as Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, and President, HP is informed and believes and thereon alleges that Hurd has put HP’s most valuable trade secrets and confidential information in peril.  Hurd accepted positions with Oracle Corporation (“Oracle”), a competitor of HP, yesterday as its President and as a member of its Board of Directors.  In his new positions, Hurd will be in a situation in which he cannot perform his duties for Oracle without necessarily using and disclosing HP’s trade secrets and confidential information to others.

HP released a statement saying: ““Mark Hurd agreed to and signed agreements designed to protect HP’s trade secrets and confidential information. HP intends to enforce those agreements.”

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  • TONY

    They should of thought about that before firing him-er.

  • Mohammad

    So what happens now?

  • Kent

    Maybe Hurd can bring the type of employee morale he left at HP to Oracle?

  • Charles A

    So, what is he supposed to do? Work at McDonald’s?

    • Lance D

      He has $26 Million. He doesnt need to do anything for a little while at least.

      • skyy_flyer

        $26 million to us, may be able to last us for a good time. But, I’m sure he has a much more extravagant lifestyle that isn’t so easily changed. I’m not saying it is right, just merely stating to us $26 million is a nice sum, to him it’s just money.

      • Matt

        What is your point? So he has to live a different lifestyle like anyone else who loses a job and then makes less money.

        What makes him so special?

      • skyy_flyer

        Wasn’t saying he is “special”. Just saying that when you lead the life of a multimillionaire, it’s a lot harder to change habits that you’ve developed. I even said I don’t think it is right. But, it’s easier to go from a 50K job down to a 30K job, than it is to go from a multimillion job to a “here’s 26 million to last you while you find another job… oh and by the way that contract you signed means you can’t work for any other company that is a competitor of ours. In the meanime enjoy paying for your house(which I doubt is a basic 150K house and it’s not exactly a cakewalk to sell houses currently), your cars(Notice the plural and I doubt he has a fleet of your everyday Camry), your insurance, your food(as Im sure this guy isn’t use to eating a McDonalds too often), your clothes(again, doubt he shops at Wal Mart all that much).” I’m not saying he shouldn’t have to live a different lifestyle. I’m just stating that going from what I’m sure was more than $26 million to just that one payent of $26 million and being told as soon as you do line up work that you can’t work there because of the job you got fired from informing you of trade secrets. I mean, should a 18 year old who quit KFC for college be denied the ability to work at his college town’s PopEyes due to knowing KFC’s secret recipe?

  • Sally T

    So Larry the Molester hires Mark the Molester…ladies (and men?) of Oracle, your ta-tas will be under attack.

  • badchad

    There’s a huge contract somewhere filled with fine-print addressing this very issue.

    It’ll be interesting to see how the lawyers hammer this out.

  • MobilePerv

    Blackberry > *

  • Moe

    HP did an stupid move on firing this guy in the first place, the once bright future for HP is no longer as shiny because he was the guy that getting the pieces together by corporate acquisitions (like snatching palm) for the new HP line of products including the slate. The internal investigation found that there was no violation of HP’s sexual harassment policy Hurd. They let him go and he went to were he was wanted, just take a pick to they stock price when the new news was announced: HP’s dropped and Oracle’s raised.

    No matter what lawyers says, he can go anywhere he want. He is no longer HP’s employee

    • Bryan

      Actually there are some times terms that you when you work with a company upon leaving that company you can’t go where you want. I know it doesn’t sound right but it’s true. This is some of the restrictions that are in place when you’re a CEO.

    • KEnt

      Larry, I see you are impersonating Moe. Now, what did you do with Curly? I hate Schemp!

  • Jawman

    There’s probably a non-compete or else HP may not stand much of a chance.

  • http://www.phonejunkie.net big red elephant

    i think hp made a huge mistake, this guy did way less than some corperate monsters out there,, hp is trying to black ball him

  • Mj

    Is that fair though. To pretty much bust your ass to the top to have someone say hey you can’t work anywhere else. Im pretty sure this is happening only because it’s oracle and the chances of him being hired again were slim because of the charges. Now that another company has him it’s a problem

  • APlayerfromtheHimalya

    (long story) Hmm…Oracle is going a totally different direction than HP. HP, I will bet my left testicle, has more acquisitions planned, and with oracle now in the Enterprise hardware business, HP is no where near a direct threat.
    This lawsuit has no legs..

    The first factor is does it affect how he makes a living? It does, would this same statement be made if he went to work for IBM?

    Horacle (yes intentionally Horable, Whoracle, etc), openly tells you they are a software company (EMC says the same thing). Built on the foundation of Dataabase Software. They just happened to be able to acquire a ton of middleware companies (BEA), ERP’s (Peoplesoft), etc. Oracle sells solutions. Software is 81% of Oracle’s revenue.

    HP has moved more in the Services/Personal Systems market.
    Again, with Personal systems market making up 33% of the revenue for hp, Services including outsourcing making up an additional 33%, and everything from storage to Enterprise Servers making up the rest, There is not much of an overlap to discuss. Name a company that has not migrated from HP-UX and hp machines with the death of PA-RISC. (who is really using itanium in their shops? who recently purchase a SuperDome class machine? NonStop/Himalya? HP-UX is done as a Unix ( It is a very good unix ) ). HP’s business model has changed totally and Mark Drove value there (albiet hurting a bunch of folks).

    I don’t see the overalap…

    Oracle will buy Teradata if Mark remains a part of Oracle.

  • Deeko

    This seems like a low blow if you ask me. The foolishly fire their CEO, who did amazing things for the company, and now they sue him for finding work? If Brian Valentine can go from running Windows to running Amazon’s ecommerce, I don’t see why Hurd can’t work for Oracle.

  • 3 Phones Jugglin

    Did they really think this guy would take all that money and just retire? No. The man still wants to work and he wants to work in arguably the only industry hes ever known. Why try to take that away from him?

    You Leave B.K to work for Mcdonalds. Walmart to Work for Target. Big deal. But im sure Ellison Got his Back. Oracle saw this coming.

  • PAPINYC

    Oh for god’s sake, leave him alone already.
    He did nothing wrong and, more importantly, he DID NOT HAVE SEXUAL RELATIONS with that broad’.

  • Brent

    They were right to force his resignation. But this lawsuit is a dumb idea. They won’t prevail, and it risks alienating long time partner Oracle. Maybe the latter was inevitable after Oracle bought SUN, but why speed it up?

  • Wild Bill

    Sharing is caring?

  • RR Droid

    I can hear the crying and whining from HP now. I think it’s ridiculous after they forced him out (which they shouldn’t have done in the first place) and then are going to try and sue or take legal action to work at another tech company? Sounds like they are back-peddaling now that they realized their mistake of letting him go.

    Too bad HP, should have thought of that before you ousted him. WORST decision of the year. You lost a very good employee. Boo-hoo.

  • Photog

    It’s called “non-compete” clause!!

    I’d bet all them high level honcho’s have a minimum time to sit on the sidelines before going to a competitor. Same thing happened when Gary Forsee left Bellsouth for Sprint who’s non-compete clause was for 18 months. Of course they wrangled in court and eventually a arbitrator, but still this is par for the course at this level.

    http://www.internetnews.com/wireless/article.php/2115701/Sprint-Names-Gary-Forsee-as-CEO.htm

  • David

    Twenty-six million… I’m thinking retirement.

  • caffesilvia

    God, people are stupid. First, Hurd was caught stealing from the company. That’s a pretty big black mark for a steward of investors’ money, regardless of whether he had a few good years in there. Second, Hurd took a terribly shortsighted approach with HP that has destroyed the company’s ability to be competitive in innovation in the foreseeable future. It’s such a miserable place to work that they can’t make acquisitions (such as Palm) without the acquired unit shrivelling up from a mass exodus of key employees. Third, non-compete agreements are common WELL BELOW Bird’s pay grade. My father accepted enforceable restrictions for no additional compensation beyond his regular salary, when he was just earning mid-six figures. In this case, Hurdles was paid $26,000,000.00 IN EXCHANGE FOR HIS PROMISE NOT TO DIVULGE TRADE SECRETS. Contrary to popular belief, executives are not entitled to bags of free money upon being fired. Are you? Hurd has engaged in his usual slimeball dealing: he negotiated and accosted payment for the restrictive covenant, then breached it with the intention of using his next employer to drain the value of the agreement to HP in court. What a piece of overpaid, self-entitled trash.

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