HP Pays $14.5M to Make Civil Charges Disappear 107
theodp writes "The California Attorney General's Office negotiated a $14.5 million payoff from HP as part of a settlement that calls for the state not to pursue civil charges related to the now infamous spy scandal against the company and its current or former officers or directors (felony criminal charges against five individuals still remain). HP also agreed to maintain the watchdog positions of chief ethics officer and chief privacy officer for five years."
Corruption (Score:4, Funny)
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Settlement is common in civil cases! (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't some back-alley dealing, it's one legitimate and often used method of resolving civil disputes quickly and cost-effectively. And on top of that, it means that HP can't appeal the decision because they agreed to it. If the case had gone to trial and verdict and resulted in a decision HP didn't like, they could have appealed and kept the case going for years without resolution, while at the same time increasing both their costs and the costs of the state in trying the case.
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The summary is very misleading in the way that it describes HP as paying money to make the case disappear. This wasn't a criminal case where they were buying off a judge to rule favorably. This was a civil matter. and 99 times out of 100, civil matters are about one thing: money. They can either pay money in the settlement, pay money as a result of a judgment from a trial, be dismissed through a motion, or be found not guilty from a trial. Settlement is COMMON, because it allows both sides to save costs from not having to pay for a costly trial. And trials are MUCH more costly than most of what happens pre-trial.
And the upshot for the State of California is that that a) they don't have to waste money pursuing the suit and b) they now have some cash to help pay off their staggering deficit. Normally I'd say put HP's feet to the fire, but I think here the Governator is being pragmatic and actually doing something to help his state in the long run.
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You mean Attorney-General Bill Lockyer, the independently-elected statewide Constitutional officer responsible for the settlement, who isn't even from the same party as the "Governator", right?
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This isn't some back-alley dealing,
Settling without an admission of guilt is back-alley dealing, no matter how common it might be in civil litigation. (And I'm not fond of nolo contendere in criminal law, either.)
For the public good and the purposes of justice, guilt is as important as imposition of a penalty. The harm done has to be, in old theological terms, publicly "repented". The attachment of a designation of guilt makes it unarguably clear that the perpetrator understands it's got some reforming t
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What are you talking about? They very publicly apologized through multiple press releases, they fired several of their executives, and agreed to an injunction (which is definitely losing from a legal standpoint). There's no dispute on anyone's part, even HP's, that they definitely did something very wrong.
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Ah, you're talking in a PR sense. I meant in a legal sense, the only sense that matters to corporate overlords.
A more precise formulation is "HP did nothing illegal, just ask 'em." And if legislative developments continue as they seem to be shaping up, future instances of this behavior will continue to be legal, just ask 'em.
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You don't think PR matters IMMENSELY to corporate overlords? HP is taking a very public hit on this, and the settlement agreement is quite public as we can all see.
But I dunno, I'm a lawyer so maybe I have a skewed view of it; I don't see having a judgment against you that big a deal. Civil wrongs aren't crimes, and every large company is going to have plenty of judgments against it on the
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It was an idea put forth during the time of waring families, and it was intended to see to it that if you tore out the eye of the son of your enemy, your own son would have his eye torn out, not to punish your son, but to make sure there was no advantage to be had by violating the social order.
HP engaged in covert espionage. Who knows what they found out?
There shouldn't be any money paid to the government here.
HP should have their entire communications struc
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More accurately it was one of the laws given by God to the israelites. A pattern for ultimate justice in those times:
Exodus 21:23-27
"[23] And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
[24] Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
[25] Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
[26] And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his ma
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The chicken or egg question of "was this particular idea chosen for this religion based on this social merit" or "did this religion survive where others failed based on their co-incidental adoptation of this social value" is something for historians to answer.
All the religions are full of this type of stuff, looks like mumbo-jibberish that you accept as part of a religion and rationalize away as metaph
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This whole thing just cost HP a little under 100 minutes of revenue, based upon their prior years revenue of nearly 92 billion dollars.
They got off easy. This will set a precedent for any criminal process in this issue.
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Face it, that's not the way the world works. Corporations are a limited liability entity to shield individuals from this kind of financial ruin.
If you screw up and it costs your employer millions of dollars, you should expect to be out of a job and to have
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So these crooked corporate executives make the decision to have their company settle out of court. That is, as you pointed out, quite common for civil cases.
But as part of the deal (which, again, involves the company paying money), those same corporate executives now avoid personal civil charges. That doesn't seem right. They are gettin
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I find it amusing that you quoted the article but somehow managed to neglect this, also from the article: "The case is separate from the felony criminal charges [com.com] that have been brought against five individuals."
Also bear in mind that the executive most responsible, chairman Patricia Dunn, is now a former employee, and is one of the five currently under indictment for the four alleged felony counts — f
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And I find it amusing that you failed to notice the three times that I wrote "civil" in my post.
Read my post again. I wrote, "They are getting off scot-free (on the civil charges, anyway)."
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Aside from former HP chairman Patricia Dunn, the other four charged [com.com] were actually Kevin T. Hunsaker, HP's former senior lawyer; Ronald DeLia, a private detective; Matthew DePante, of data-brokering company Action Research Group; and Bryan Wagner, a Colorado man believed to have been an employee of Action Research. Not much from the board per se, but the charges seem to cover the responsible parties.
Re:A more fashionable solution! (Score:5, Informative)
"Normal" people go to jail.....
Sigh, could you not even bother to read the summary properly? What part of "felony criminal charges against five individuals still remain" do you find difficult to grasp?
HP is in the clear though (Score:1, Informative)
HP is not in the clear... (Score:2)
HP surrendered, they didn't get away.
Re:A more fashionable solution! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A more fashionable solution! (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's not. It's a consequence of the corporate veil [wikipedia.org] and the general unwillingness to pierce it. The veil is considered sacred because it empowers the members of a corporation to take risky, productive steps in the face of possible backlash -- be it legal or financial.
The veil is further justifiable by realizing that corporations encourage sociopathic groupthink, by their very nature... and so their members are (to some degree) excused for doing so. I say "to some degree" because as the felony charges in this case demonstrate, members are not excused for the serious stuff.
Another way to look at it is to state the issue in your terms: the veil is the way that a corporation's members pool their human right to free association. The veil essentially announces to the world "If you wish to associate with any of our number, then you do agree to do so by treating us as collective and unseverable". The law gives force to this agreement by standardization, and this results in efficiency gains all around.
Of course it also results in sociopathic behavior... but that is a cost and it usually compares favorably to the yield.
Re:A more fashionable solution! (Score:5, Informative)
People still might. The AG isn't waiving rights to press criminal charges against indiviuals, and in fact is pressing ahead with at least five cases, including against Dunn.
This actually doesn't seem like a terrible thing to me. A civil case against HP would be an enormous burden on the state of California, drag on for years, and by the virtue of the sheer size of HP, be unlikely to result in anything more than a wrist-slap. This settlement gets HP to admit to wrongdoing, puts some measures in place (pathetic though they may be) to try and keep them from doing it again, and not only saves the state money, but gives them a warchest to go after the real villains in this case: the executives who felt that the shield of incorporation gave them the right to condone and engage in unethical behaviour.
Re:A more fashionable solution! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they engaged in illegal behavior. Not everything that is unethical is illegal. See our current political system and the campaign finance system that supports it. Tell me what is ethical about the fact that elected Senators and Congressman don't even bother to read most of the bills they vote on. They don't even write the bills anymore, their staffers do. You know, the same staffers who will eventually leave to take high paying jobs with lobbying firms after paying their dues writing bills that are friendly to the interest those lobbyist represent. Completely unethical, 100% legal.
In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see most of these five individuals get what amounts to a slap on the wrist after a large donation or two is made to the proper re-election campaign committees or PACs. Sure one of them will have the book thrown at them so it appears action is being taken. Probably the lowest person on the totem pole. Then, after the smoke clears from that conviction suddenly the state will find no compelling reason to drag these remaining cases out. The poor defendants will have been put through enough. A small fine and 6 months probation will suddenly be more than enough punishment. After all, their names will have already been drug through the mud. That punishment alone will have done more damage than anything they state could do. They will have learned their lessons. I can see it now. What a joke.
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Here's a hint. TFA refers to a civil case. Criminal cases are treated separately, sort of like winning a divorce case doesn't mean you get the kids; typically, you have to slug it all over again in a custody case.
Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of statutory and common law that deals with crime and the legal punishment of criminal offenses. There are four theories of criminal justice: punishment, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. It is believe [wikipedia.org]
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Not in civil cases they don't.
This was a civil case, and HP essentially settled. If the case had gone on and HP lost, all that would have happened is that they would have paid a slightly larger amount of money. This action also applies only to the State of California. It doesn't stop any other party from continuing/seeking a lawsuit over the matter.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Heh (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not really sure what the big deal here is. I'm all for routing out corruption and all that jazz, but this is an issue of civil law. They settled the case. This happens dozens, maybe hundreds of times per day in civil cases; 90% of civil cases never reach a verdict.
The fact that the article submitter chose to spin it as a "payoff" doesn't magically make it a bribe. Call me when they pay $14.5 million and get the criminal charges dropped and then I'll hoot and holler about corruption and greed in America with you. Until then, this is a total non-issue for me. The settlement may be a little bit on the low end, but then again I'm not too terribly disappointed that they didn't waste taxpayer money to pursue both a civil and criminal trial over basically the same charges/complaints.
Shhhh.... (Score:2)
I'm all for routing out corruption and all that jazz, but this is an issue of civil law.
They're in high dudgeon and don't want to be confused with facts.
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No argument there.
I don't believe this settlement would preclude the individuals who got their information pretexted from filing their own individual lawsuits. And, as stated before, many of the people involved in the scheme still face criminal charges. I think that would cover the punishment aspect of justice.
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"The percentage of tort cases concluded by trial in U.S. district courts has...declined from 10% in the early 1970s to 2% in 2003." Civil Justice Statistics [usdoj.gov]
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Isn't it nice to know that justice is affordable, only $14.5 million
I'm the man for the job! (Score:1)
ETHICS OFFICER
1. Own fancy suits
2. can swat people with rolled-up newspaper while shouting "BAD KITTY, BAD!"
3. will hunt down and execute people responsible for deep-sixing the good RPN calculators.
PRIVACY OFFICER
1. Own fancy suits
2. can swat people with rolled-up newspaper while shouting "NO LOOKING!"
3. will institute manditory privacy screens for erotic interweb browsing.
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A nice comparison... (Score:3, Insightful)
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I thought the people stealing them where performing a comunity service by removing a healthrisk
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"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."
A lot of corporate activity in America seems to be run with that as a guiding principle. Do something on a big enough scale, and it stops being bad, and simply becomes... unethical, but not actually illegal? And if it is done by a committee, no single person actually makes a decision, so it isn't even unethical.
Of course, this also goes back to the si
Buying injustice... (Score:5, Interesting)
Patricia Dunn took pretty much all the heat for this, and that's unfortunate for her and HP. It seems to me like she should have had a better grip on what was happening at HP, but it doesn't seem to me like she should have been the only one with that responsibility. A full, objective, and independent investigation should have been the first think on everybody's list. Instead, this case is now settled, Congress has moved on, and Dunn will be focussed on proving her innocence.
The unfortunate thing for Mark Hurd is that his level of responsibility and accountability wasn't determined in this process. The second HP hits a performance blip, this scandal will be the first thing on every shareholder's mind when they're thinking of who to blame. When that day comes, I wouldn't want to be in Mark Hurd's shoes.
--
justen
justen.blogspot.com [blogspot.com]
Re:Buying injustice... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the shareholders do not seem to mind. In fact, the market is relieved that their company got away so lightly.
Re:Buying injustice... (Score:4, Informative)
AFAICT, they can certainly still bring civil action, shareholders already are suing, the SEC is investigating and criminal charges are still on the table. Basically, HP paid a fine to avoid the risk of a larger fine, as is completely routine.
I'd wonder where "theodp" and CowboyNeal are getting their bizarre spin on this from if I didn't know that most of the people here still don't understand the difference between criminal and civil law, despite spending every day ranting about legal proceedings.
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And the criminal cases are unaffected. That's what matters in the end; this was a case of criminal behavior by individuals in control of a company, not corporate policy.
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Chief Ethics Officer?! (Score:2)
On the plus side, I guess you can have "CEO" on your business cards.
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You should applaud HP for this. They settled for a civil suit. not criminal, civil. They said they were wrong. They are making amends. They are instuting policies to not let it happen again. However much you trust the effectiveness is irrelevant. You keep an eye on them if you're that worried. Th
More like Ethically Challenged Officer (Score:1)
For some reason slashdot requires the facts to be stated and restated in multiple posts without actually changing anyones opinion on anything (mostly because they read only what confirms their own worldview anyway).
Apparently you dont know about NCR after AT&T with respect to the leadership under Nyberg. Carly seems to be off the radar as well. Nor do you seem to remember how far they went to keep her.
However much you trust the effectiveness is irrelevant. You keep an eye on them if you're that worried.
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In case you didn't notice, criminal charges are still pending in this HP case.
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A lot of the Enron people were convicted too. These were invariably very wealthy, VERY well-connected people.
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For every Martha Stewart and Enron exec you have a thousand faceless men who, despite having committed
Re:Bah and bah again. (Score:5, Informative)
It's called a CIVIL case. If you're not familiar with the American legal system you probably don't know how far off base you are. You can not be "put behind bars" in a civil case. This is a case to determine liability in terms of monetary damages. The criminal case will still happen and that's where people get jailed.
Either you don't know what you're talking about or you're just a troll.
Remember (Score:2)
Call me a cynic.. (Score:1)
but the Scientologists had (have?) a Watchdog Committee and Ethics Officers and we can all trust them now can't we...
Who does the money go to? (Score:1)
Sounds like open bribes to me
So the shareholders pay? (Score:2)
And since when was it possible to settle criminal cases! ridiculous
nuke california
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Uh, yeah. It's called "ownership". You own (part of) the company, you take (part of) the risks. Those risks include the possibility that your asshat employees (including your board) will screw you.
And since when was it possible to settle criminal cases! ridiculous
Jesus, not only didn't you RTFA, you didn't even read the
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Yes, the shareholders pay for their directors' irresponsibility. This makes the shareholders responsible for the choice of directors. (Of course, the shareholders are free to sue the directors for violating their obligations to the shareholders.)
<blockquote>And since when was it possible to settle criminal cases!</blockquote>
This wasn't a criminal case; the criminal cases against
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Not really that bad and not really news.... (Score:1)
Before all the knee jerk reactions start (too late for that) stating this is unfair or a travesty of justice, it is not. This is simply an out of court settlement for a civil case. Anyone could have done the same thing.
For example: My neighbor wants to sue me in civil court for some perceived wrong doing. I go to my neighbor and say "Listen, instead of dragging this thing to court why don't I pay you X sum of money and agree to not do it again." My neighbor could accept the settlement and be done w
Revised definition (Score:4, Insightful)
sneak preview for HP employees (Score:2, Funny)
Here's an example verification, which I found by hacking one of the servers:
Suppose a supplier offers to bribe you with a pair of World Series tickets to increase your purchases from his company. Should you:
a) Say yes! Baseball is America's game, and give-and-take is good business.
b) Refuse the offer and report the incident to top management
c) A
Slashdot + Anything Law Related = (Score:1)
Mod Parent UP (Score:2)
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The Attorney General in question here is Bill Lockyer, who in 2004 was found to be shopping around draft legislation provided to him by the MPAA:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/digiwood/0,62665 -0.html [wired.com]
http://www.slumdance.com/blogs/brian_flemming/arch ives/000809.html [slumdance.com]
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,722 [wired.com]
Why I will be wary of HP products. (Score:1)
I wish (Score:1)
Glad to see they will require a Chief Ethics Offic (Score:2)
Especially because their previous one (and also their general counsel) were involved in the pre-texting scandal
What's the percentage...? (Score:2)
I guess everyone has their price. Perhaps someone can calculate what percentage of HP's net worth is $14.5 million so others could use that same percentage to settle their civil suits with CA ...
I'm guessing it would be *very* affordable. :-)
How much is your privacy worth? (Score:2)
But then, this is the most corrupt state in the union, what more do you want? *shakes head*
so who pays the fine? (Score:2)
THe fine gets paid by the shareholders and customers and perhaps a few low level employees who get fired. The fine is not paid by those who are guilty.
settlement fund (Score:1, Interesting)
As part of the settlement [...] HP will "finance a new law enforcement fund to fight violations of privacy and *intellectual-property* rights"
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So... HP is to give money to RIAA/MPAA?
meaningless settlement. (Score:3, Funny)
Entity Vs. Executives (Score:1)