By Agency reporter
Wednesday, 22 Dec 2010
SAN FRANCISCO: Regulators are looking into the events surrounding Mr. Mark Hurd‘s abrupt exit as Chief Executive of Hewlett Packard Company, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
The United States Security Exchange Commission‘s probe was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, which cited anonymous sources as saying the SEC was investigating claims that Hurd shared inside information with an ex-contractor, ahead of its $13.9bn acquisition of Electronic Data Systems in 2008.
Hurd‘s departure in August stunned investors and sent shares tumbling eight per cent in the first trading day after the announcement. Now an Oracle co-president, he left under a cloud of sexual harassment accusations, although the board found no evidence to back up that allegation.
HP instead accused Hurd of filing inaccurate expense reports to conceal a â€ÂÂclose personal relationship†with a former contractor, although Hurd‘s representatives have disputed that.
Now, the government was also examining the claims of inaccurate expense reports filed by Hurd at HP, and looking into whether Hurd destroyed computer evidence related to his departure, the Journal reported.
Source: Punch
