HP top brass, former CEO slapped with investor lawsuit
Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman painted an optimistic outlook at her company’s Discover customer event last year, dedicating the largest portion of her keynote address to new market opportunities. The former eBay chief discussed cloud computing, Big Data and even upcoming technologies such as 3D printing, and detailed how HP is trying to stay ahead of the curve in each segment while never losing sight of the big picture.
“We are looking ahead to assess future needs,” Whitman told a packed audience. ”The foundation of this new style of IT, we are all defining it together. We’re providing comprehensive solutions for this foundation for the new style of IT. Our company strategy is to provide solutions for the new style of IT. HP is the only company with breadth, depth, innovative products to help you succeed.”
Despite the encouraging words and a number of recent milestones such as HP’s re-entry into the mobile market, some investors believe that Whitman – along with the rest of the company’s top brass – have done too little to address the challenges facing the company, which is entering a third year of revenue decline.
In a lawsuit filed with a federal court in San Francisco, shareholder A.J. Copeland accuses Whitman, the board and former chief executive Leo Apotheker of failing “in their most fundamental stewardship responsibilities owed to HP.” The firm, which in 2011 sued directors for supposed waste of company resources stemming from the 2010 acquisition of 3PAR, claims that the alleged mismanagement eroded the vendor’s stock price. The lawsuit also cites the botched acquisition of Autonomy, which resulted in a whopping $8.8 billion write-down that Hewlett-Packard blames on the British analytics firm’s former management.
This is hardly the first time HP has landed in legal hot water over the conduct of its CEO. In September 2011, back when Leo Apotheker was still in charge, shareholder Richard Gammel filed a class action lawsuit charging that the executive misled investors over the company’s earnings expectations. Just over a year prior, Mark Hurd was forced to resign as chief exec following a sexual harassment scandal that eventually got the board sued.
photo credit: tracie7779 via photopin cc
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