Lawsuit Over HP Ex-CEO Hurd Payout Dismissed

Scandals don’t have a very long shelf life, but trials involving them apparently do. After almost two years of legal procedings, Judge Donald Parsons of the Delaware Chancery Court has dismissed the case and found no wrongdoing on the part of Hewlett-Packard in awarding Hurd a $40 Million severance package.

In his 30-page opinion issued on Thursday, Parsons said denying severance to Hurd could have hurt HP by making it more difficult to find a replacement.

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So who is a loser here Federal Government?

Shareholders. 40 million bucks is a big payday for trying to diddle your underlings.

Also, employees. 40 million dollars is the career earnings for ten engineers, none of whom will ever make such monumentally destructive errors.

Aluisious said:

Also, employees. 40 million dollars is the career earnings for ten engineers, none of whom will ever make such monumentally destructive errors.

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Just ten? LOL. I worked for HP and can assure you their engineers make nowhere near that much.

College grads use HP/Dell as a springboard to real jobs. No one I knew there under the age of 30 was in it for the long haul.

In his 30-page opinion issued on Thursday, Parsons said denying severance to Hurd could have hurt HP by making it more difficult to find a replacement.

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Backwards corrupt judge is backwards.

The way I see it, allowing a $40 million payment hurts HP by making potential replacements aware that they can F up and still get a multi-million dollar payday. Knowing that if you F up you will lose millions of dollars is the incentive not to F up.

Dammit! We need to run the government more like the private sector!

Er. Wait...

InorganicMatter said:

Just ten? LOL. I worked for HP and can assure you their engineers make nowhere near that much.

College grads use HP/Dell as a springboard to real jobs. No one I knew there under the age of 30 was in it for the long haul.

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Well, if it's 50 years of earning around 80k, it makes sense. A career earning...

At first I thought HP gave 40 million dollars to the GNU/Hurd project.

If you're at the top, you can't fail. If you do well, you make big bucks. If you do poorly, you make big bucks. There's no 'punishment clause' for doing poorly either, it's win-win for the top no matter what. If you're at the top, you're fired out of a diamond-encrusted platinum cannon with a golden parachute and land in the pool on a yacht with a butler standing by, champagne and caviar at hand. Now if you're just a regular worker and make a mistake that costs the company money, BLAM!, you're outta there with a Deputy Dawg escort.

IMO we need more tax brackets at the top with much higher rates to discourage outlandish executive pay. They've tied themselves to the middle class in tax rates by purchasing politicians, allowing their pay and compensation to go sky high. There's no incentive to keep pay and compensation at reasonable levels when it's taxed so low. Businesses used to turn that would be taxed cash back in to the company via expansion, adding to product lines, better employee compensation and so on. Higher tax rates on the top led to stronger companies and a better compensated workforce. Why would they want to give it to Uncle Sam instead of the company? It only made good sense then. Now there's no longer the need for that, there's no real loyalty by an exec to a company because no matter what happens, they win.

Look at what has happened since the lowering the top rates long ago; the people at the bottom have been sinking or barely treading water while the top is raking in the dough.

I'm glad the courts saw reason in this. It was a stupid lawsuit to begin with. HP came to an agreement with Hurd when he took up the job. If a company creates a contractual agreement with a chief executive, it's obligated to uphold that agreement when it comes time to part ways.

Public opinion and all the comments about how it hurts the business don't matter. If HP didn't want to pay 40 million during his departure, they could have entered into a different agreement when he was hired into the position.

Serpent said:

Well, if it's 50 years of earning around 80k, it makes sense. A career earning...

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People work until they are in their 70's? Damn. (assuming you get out of college at around 22, that being very early)

They do now. When you live to be 90 you can't retire when you're 65 with a couple thousand bucks in the bank. The amount of savings people have for "retirement" is comical.

dugn said:

Dammit! We need to run the government more like the private sector!

Er. Wait...

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Imagine if we paid $40 million to every public official that has ever had a sex scandal and felt the need to resign.

Wasn't the big problem HP had with Hurd was that he falsified expense reports to hide his actions more than his actions themselves? Eg charging the company for work related expenses doing X, when he was really off doing Y with a woman. Charging the company for work related expenses doing Y when he was off doing Z with a woman. Etc.

Ualdayan said:

Imagine if we paid $40 million to every public official that has ever had a sex scandal and felt the need to resign.

Wasn't the big problem HP had with Hurd was that he falsified expense reports to hide his actions more than his actions themselves? Eg charging the company for work related expenses doing X, when he was really off doing Y with a woman. Charging the company for work related expenses doing Y when he was off doing Z with a woman. Etc.

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Oh, and their other big problem with Hurd was - 'The investigation also found that Mr. Hurd didn't disclose a close personal relationship with the contractor, and that the woman was paid at times when there was no legitimate purpose.' Not only did he expense things that he wasn't actually doing, but he also just literally gave money to the woman he was for 'contractor work' even when she did literally no work.

Ualdayan said:

Oh, and their other big problem with Hurd was - 'The investigation also found that Mr. Hurd didn't disclose a close personal relationship with the contractor, and that the woman was paid at times when there was no legitimate purpose.' Not only did he expense things that he wasn't actually doing, but he also just literally gave money to the woman he was for 'contractor work' even when she did literally no work.

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Sounds like fraud to me. And why is this grounds for termination for any other position excepting CEO?

Forty millions bucks to take a company from one of the top tech companies to almost gone.