Leak, Inquiry and Resignation Rock

Should what happens in the board room stay in the board room?

As corporate dish goes, it is hard to beat this: an uproar over news leaks from the boardroom, a cloak-and-dagger investigation, allegations of spying and double-dealing, and a clash involving some of Silicon Valley’s best-known names that could end in lawsuits and possibly criminal charges.

The furor at Hewlett-Packard began unfolding when Thomas J. Perkins, a pioneer venture capitalist, quit the board after an investigation pointed to a friend on the board as a source of the news leaks. Mr. Perkins’s pique turned to outrage when he learned that investigators working for the company had posed as the directors themselves, armed with at least part of their Social Security numbers — a method commonly used by hackers and identity thieves — to obtain the directors’ personal phone records.

Those tactics are now the focus of a criminal investigation by the California attorney general — and the heart of the corporate intrigue .

It is the latest episode in a soap opera that began in early 2005 with the board’s ouster of its chief executive, Carleton S. Fiorina, after press reports surfaced about directors’ dissatisfaction with her. Mr. Perkins, in a letter to his former board colleagues, said the whole affair amounted to “probable unlawful conduct, improper board practices, breakdowns in corporate governance” and general disarray at a company with which he was long associated. His anger seemed directed in particular at the chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn, who ordered the investigation.

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/business/index.html