A day after he was named a co-president at Oracle, Hewlett-Packard filed a complaint against former chief executive Mark Hurd. In a civil complaint filed on Oct. 7 in California Superior Court, HP said that Hurd would be putting the company's "most valuable trade secrets and confidential information in peril" by working at Oracle.
"Mark Hurd agreed to and signed agreements designed to protect HP's trade secrets and confidential information," HP said. "HP intends to enforce those agreements."
"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 said.
Hurd, 53, resigned as HP's CEO last month after a sexual harassment probe uncovered subterfuge with company expenses. The investigation found he had not broken harassment rules, but was in breach of HP's "standards of business conduct."
Hurd was named co-president of Oracle on Spet. 6 and also given a seat on the board of directors of the company.
Hurd said he was "excited to be a part of the most innovative technology team in the IT industry."
"I believe Oracle's strategy of combining software with hardware will enable Oracle to beat IBM in both enterprise servers and storage," he said.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010
