HP has had its share of legal issues and controversy with the most recent
being the accusations of insider
trading and of the inappropriate measures HP used to find which of its
employees were leaking information to the press in 2006.
This week a former HP executive was indicted
for leaking trade secrets gleaned from his former employer IBM to HP
executives. Atul Malhotra was hired by HP’s printing division in May 2006 as a vice
president. Malhotra previously worked for IBM from 1997 to 2006 in the IBM global
printer sales division.
A few months before Malhotra was hired by HP, he requested a confidential
document from IBM and was given access to the document that outlined IBM sales
metrics. According to HP, Malhotra sent an email a few months after he started
with HP to two senior vice presidents with a subject line saying “For Your Eyes
Only”.
Inside the emails, Malhotra provided the internal IBM memo which is reported
to have been marked IBM confidential on each page. HP Spokeswoman Emma
McCulloch said in a statement, “The activity with which Malhotra is charged was
in direct violation of clear HP policies, including HP’s standards of business
conduct.”
Malhotra was terminated for forwarding the sensitive information. HP said it
self-reported the activity to the appropriate legal agencies and cooperated
fully with law enforcement investigations.
