The Wall Street Journal has become the conduit for this post-game battle. In a story this evening, the newspaper reported that the HP board came to mistrust Hurd after he settled a sexual harassment claim with former marketing contractor Jodie Fisher just the night before HP’s lawyers were going to meet with her.
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The board, however, felt that Hurd’s settlement with Fisher increased mistrust among directors who felt like he wasn’t fully cooperating. It’s clear that somebody is lying here, and, even after the event, both sides care deeply about how the public perceives the episode.
However, some believe other factors were at play in the firing. Just yesterday, New York Times columnist Joe Nocera blasted the board as being cowardly for firing Hurd based on a pretext rather than firing him because of his focus on short-term gains and lack of vision.
Now the board is dealing with backlash that includes a shareholder suit. Critics fault the board for allowing Hurd to receive a golden parachute worth $35 million.
One of the nuggets the Journal dug out was that investigators found Hurd had looked at clips from racy films featuring Fisher (right), who is a former softcore porn actress as well as a former executive. Hurd’s anonymous defender says he just did a Google search of 10 minutes or so. The Journal also said that Hurd and Fisher were introduced in August, 2007 by Caprice Fimbres McIlvaine, who served as Hurd’s chief of staff and was formally director of internal communications. Fimbres McIlvaine resigned last week.
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