HP isn’t through with Mark Hurd just yet. The tech industry’s largest player yesterday filed a lawsuit against Oracle, charging that its hiring of former HP CEO Mark Hurd will lead to leaked trade secrets.
It’s the latest development in a series of controversies surrounding the departure of Hurd from HP, the company that he’s widely credited with turning around and launching on a string of acquisitions designed to cash in on lucrative demand for IT services and other areas. For Oracle, however, he represented a chance at an executive skilled in the kinds of M&A activity for which Oracle has become famed, as well as for running a company with, software, hardware and integrated offerings — key to Oracle’s plans for capitalizing on Sun Microsystems, which it now owns. Datamation has the story.
HP didn’t waste much time responding to Oracle’s Labor Day announcement that it had hired former HP (NYSE: HPQ) CEO Mark Hurd as its president. Tuesday, HP filed a civil complaint in California Superior Court aimed at preventing Hurd from working at Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL).
The suit claims that by joining Oracle, Hurd will “inevitably” break the confidentiality agreement he signed to protect HP’s trade secrets.
HP also noted Hurd signed the company’s confidentiality agreement to protect trade secrets the past three years, most recently in February.
