HP files legal complaint over Hurd move

HP has filed a formal appeal concerning Oracle's hiring of deposed chief executive Mark Hurd.

The company has asked a California state court to place an injunction barring Hurd from holding positions which could enable him to share HP trade secrets. HP is also seeking compensatory damages and attorney fees.

"Mark Hurd agreed to, and signed agreements designed to, protect HP's trade secrets and confidential information," the company said in a statement. "HP intends to enforce those agreements."

Oracle announced yesterday that Hurd will replace Charles Phillips as co-president and sit on the company's board of directors.

However, HP claims that the move violates clauses to which Hurd had agreed when he abruptly stepped down from his position as chief executive in August.

The company believes that Hurd's new role at Oracle makes it inevitable that he will violate the agreement, considering that he wrote HP's business plans for 2010 and 2011.

"HP is informed and believes thereon that Hurd put HP's most valuable trade secrets and confidential information in peril," the company said in the court filing (PDF).

"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."

Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison, a long-standing critic of HP's handling of Hurd, warned that the filing could jeopardise business between the two firms.

"Oracle has long viewed HP as an important partner. By filing this vindictive lawsuit against Oracle and Mark Hurd, the HP board is acting with utter disregard for that partnership, our joint customers, and their own shareholders and employees," he said.

"The HP board is making it virtually impossible for Oracle and HP to continue to co-operate and work together in the IT marketplace."