Ethics Newsline®

PALO ALTO, Calif.
In an exclusive interview with Bloomberg, Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd says the events surrounding the company’s ethics scandal were “a wake-up call.”

Hurd said, “We can’t afford to have another significant ethics and compliance issue.”

Hurd took the helm six months ago after the company, one of the lions of high tech, was embarrassed by an incident in which the firm hired private investigators to improperly obtain phone records of board members and journalists in an effort to track down leaks to the media.

While the majority of criminal charges stemming from the incident were dropped, company officials were grilled by Congress about their corporate ethics and the case was viewed to have caused significant damage to the firm’s reputation.

Since ascending to the top job, Hurd hired a new general counsel, Jon Hoak, who has doubled the company’s compliance staff to 12, set up a committee to review policies, and traveled to 15 nations to deliver ethics training to various arms of the corporation.

Hoak says the chances for a repeat of last year’s ethics meltdown are “almost nil,” according to the Bloomberg report.