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With a “pre-texting” scandal swirling around it, HP’s board of directors met in an emergency session Sunday, but only said it would reconvene late this afternoon with no word yet on the fate of the chairwoman of the board.
Patricia Dunn, the chairwoman of the board who ordered the probe, has said that she was appalled by the news. She is under pressure to both resign, as well as to stay and ride out the pressure.
In a terse, three sentence statement Sunday, HP said the board of directors met for several hours this morning. The board said it agreed to reconvene late today and that no further statement would be forthcoming from the company before that time.
An HP spokesman was not immediately available for comment Sunday.
HP has already confirmed that a probe of media leaks resulted in the access of phone records of nine journalists as well as a former member of the board of directors Thomas Perkins, after the board hired investigators to help find the source of press leaks. The Attorney General of California is investigating and asserts that laws were broken.
The private eyes apparently impersonated HP board members in order to get phone companies to turn over detailed records of the phone calls, following media leaks in the midst of board deliberations regarding then-CEO Carly Fiorina, who was later ousted.
As previously reported by internetnews.com, HP has admitted that private investigators used pretexting to probe boardroom leaks to the media, and will cooperate “completely and fully” with an inquiry into the affair by California’s Attorney General, according to an HP spokesperson.
In a search warrant, California investigators are asking ISP Cox Communications to turn over documents that could help the state learn the identity of those who accessed the phone records of board member Perkins, one of the founders of the legendary Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Buyers.
This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.
