Hewlett-Packard's (HP) chairwoman ordered monitoring of its directors' phones to determine the source of news leaks, prompting a furor in which one director quit and another rebuffed efforts to oust him, the company said on Tuesday.
The dispute is to be laid out in documents that HP was to file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday.
The concern over leaks began in the months preceding Carly Fiorina's ouster as chief executive last year, the company said.
But the confrontation within the board unfolded this year after an internal report identified George Keyworth II, Hewlett-Packard's longest-serving director, as a source of disclosures.
The company said the report was based on monitoring of board members' calls from home phones and cellphones in January, an effort authorized by Patricia Dunn, the chairwoman.
BOARDROOM DISPUTE
When the report was presented at its meeting in May, the board asked Keyworth to resign, but he refused, saying he had been elected by the shareholders, a company spokesman said.
The company also said that the attempt to oust Keyworth had prompted Thomas Perkins, the founder of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, to resign.
A company spokesman, Michael Moeller, said that because Perkins did not say that he was resigning out of disagreement with the board, the company did not disclose the events relating to the investigation when it reported his resignation to the SEC.
"He's changed his mind," the spokesman said of Perkins, and because he has a dispute with the company, that prompted a further disclosure to the SEC.
Hewlett-Packard, which is expected to hold board elections in March, said Keyworth would not be renominated for his seat.
Keyworth and Perkins did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday evening.
The HP board began an investigation into news leaks after forcing Fiorina to resign in February last year.
AUTHORIZATION
The board dispute was reported on Tuesday in an article on Newsweek's Web site by David Kaplan, who is writing a book about a yacht that Perkins recently had built.
The article said Dunn, who was named chairwoman after Fiorina's ouster, had authorized a team of independent electronic-security experts to monitor the phone communications of the 10 other directors.
HP said its legal counsel had advised her that the surveillance was legal and proper.
The company said that it began the investigation last year after news reports quoted directors about dissatisfaction with Fiorina's management.
But the Wall Street Journal's Web site reported on Tuesday evening that it was a report last January on the CNET Web site about an off-site management meeting that provoked Dunn's ire.
The Newsweek article said that Perkins had provided documents to the SEC revealing how the investigation was conducted and that he had not been allowed to review and approve the SEC filing the company made in May regarding his resignation.
The article said Perkins had asked other government agencies to investigate the surveillance of HP directors.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) met in Beijing yesterday, where they vowed to bring people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait closer to facilitate the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” The meeting was held in the East Hall of the Great Hall of the People, a venue typically reserved for meetings between Xi and foreign heads of state. In public remarks prior to a closed-door meeting, Xi, in his role as head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), said that Taiwan is historically part of China, and remains an “inalienable” and
RSS