I hate when you've been writing something for, oh say, 30 minutes or so and then your browser freezes and you lose everything... These are the times that try men's souls...

So consider yourself spared of my lengthy peanut gallery musings. Cut to the chase and read David Kaplan's new Newsweek article which details the increasingly ugly fight between Hewlett Pakard's current chair, Patricia Dunn and former director Thomas Perkins, who resigned after discovering that Dunn had initiated electronic surveillance of 10 HP directors in an attempt to discover who had been leaking juicy company details to the press.

"Surveillance" in this case apparently means paying folks to obtain the person private phone records of the directors in question (a subject we've addressed repeatedly at The Daily Caveat). Perkins, for his part, in addition to being furious about the whole affair also denies being the leaker. Post-resignation from his board seat, he has been attempting to force HP to publicly reveal Dunn's surveillance scheme, which Kaplan's article has now done nicely.

Perkins has been trying to force HP to revise the 8K filed with the SEC at the time of his resignation. These documents are supposed to record the reasons for a director's departure (and are a regular tool of investigators seeking to I.D. witnesses) especially if the breakup involves a dissagreement with the company. Perkin's 8K, however, was curiously devoid of any such nuances.

The Perkins 8K was expected to be revised any day now by HP, and it looks like as of Wed morning, it has been, to reflect their take on the whole - still bubbling - affair.

-- MDT

Labels: HP