The New York Times is reporting on a private settlement reached between HP and several journalists over HP's acquisition of the journalists private phone records. HP, aided an abetted by law firm Wilson Sonsini famously went on the war path against C-suite leaks under the direction of then CEO Patricia Dunn. Enlisting a small army of investigators from all across the country HP was determined to identify and eradicate the source of the troublesome leaks - by any means necessary.

The means ended up being a smorgasborg of high level and low level investigative tasks - from surveillance to pulling trash to the acquisition of phone records belonging to company board members as well as reporters. In the course of what became known as the Kona II investigation HP board member and Silicon Valley royalty, Tom Perkins - a suspected leaker - got wind of the activities. Perkins subsequently resigned from the board, which in a bit of executive gamesmanship, forced HP to file an 8K with the SEC reporting the departure - and the reason behind it.

About that time the proverbial shit hit the fan and the story was splashed across business pages from here to Taipei.

HP has already skated on any meaningful civil or criminal charges (the firm paid a $14.5 million settlement to head off charges in California), but the attention brought by the pretexting fracas led to new Federal legislation closing the legal loophole that had allowed private investigators to use pre-textual techniques to obtain private phone records. While this latest news of a private settlement brings to a close one more aspect of the story five additional lawsuits brought by journalists and their families remain pending. You an be sure we'll bring further happenings on those cases to your attention.

-- MDT

Labels: HP, Patricia Dunn, pretexting, Tom Perkins, Wilson Sonsini