HP sues Hurd over Oracle move

Hewlett-Packard is suing its ousted chief executive, Mark Hurd, to prevent him immediately taking up a senior position at rival computer giant Oracle.

A month to the day after he was forced to resign over a sex and expenses scandal at HP, Mr Hurd was named co-president at Oracle, and put in charge of the company's expansion into the sale of IT hardware - pitching the company into a headlong battle against HP.

Straightaway, HP launched a lawsuit in California, saying he could not go to Oracle and accusing him of potentially breaching confidentiality agreements.

"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."

Oracle shares jumped 6 per cent in early trading yesterday, on news of Mr Hurd's appointment, adding about $6bn to its market value. Larry Ellison, Oracle's founder, became Mr Hurd's most outspoken public defender in the sex and expenses scandal that led to his resignation.

Mr Hurd left HP after an internal investigation found he had submitted misleading expenses claims that disguised an inappropriately close relationship with a former soft-porn actress hired by the company to organise corporate events.

The actress, Jodie Fisher, had accused him of sexual harassment, but the pair settled that claim privately.

In a public relations blitz after his resignation, Mr Hurd's representatives argued that he had not personally submitted the misleading expenses claims, and Mr Ellison said the HP board had made "the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs" in 1985.

"There is no executive in the IT world with more relevant experience than Mark," Mr Ellison said yesterday.

Both at HP and earlier in his career, Mr Hurd has combined software and hardware businesses, the better to satisfy all the IT needs of big corporate customers.

Oracle signalled the scale of its ambitions in this area by saying Mr Hurd could make it a "$100bn business" - triple its current annual revenue - and would take on other big rivals in the industry, including leader IBM.

- THE INDEPENDENT