SAN FRANCISCO — Hewlett-Packard is suing the chief executive it ousted last month, Mark Hurd, to stop him from taking a top job at rival Oracle.
The lawsuit comes a day after Oracle hired Hurd as co-president to help lead the database-software maker as it tries to steal business from HP. It centers on HP’s claim that Hurd won’t be able to perform his job at Oracle without spilling HP’s trade secrets and violating a confidentiality agreement, part of a severence package that could top $40 million.
As HP’s CEO for five years, Hurd was responsible for preparing HP’s strategic plans and has intimate details about HP’s profit margins and special deals it has offered customers, according to the lawsuit. HP also said Hurd was privy to a “highly confidential” analysis of Oracle’s competitiveness against HP.
Unless stopped, HP claims in the suit, Hurd would diminish the value of HP’s trade secrets, hurt customer relationships and “give Oracle a strategic advantage as to where to allocate or not allocate resources and exploit the knowledge of HP’s strengths and weaknesses.”
Hurd and Oracle declined to comment. The Associated Press
