Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) is suing its ex-employee and former channel chief, Adrian Jones, for allegedly stealing company information before taking up a job at Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL).
HP claims that Jones, who served as the company’s worldwide channel chief and most recently led sales for its enterprise servers and storage business in Asia, copied documents and e-mails onto a USB device which contained information about the company’s products and customers.
In the lawsuit which was filed on Wednesday at the Superior Court of California in the County of Santa Clara, HP is asking that all documents be returned and the company also wants to be awarded for damages.
HP also claims in the lawsuit that it wanted to fire Jones in February after learning he had been involved in an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate and had also filed inaccurate expense claims. Before any action for this could be taken, Jones resigned from HP and later took up a job at Oracle as its senior vice-president of Asia Pacific/Japan.
CDN contacted HP for an interview about this news and an HP spokesperson responded with this prepared statement.
“HP takes the protection of its trade secrets and confidential information seriously. This action seeks to prevent Jones from using the theft of confidential HP documents to place HP in an unfair competitive disadvantage.”
While he was channel chief, Jones was a big advocate for the channel. At the company’s Americas Partner Conference in 2008, Jones had said, “I hope you realize that the channel is part of our DNA.”
This is the second time HP has recently been involved in the legal spotlight. Last fall, the company filed a lawsuit against its former CEO, Mark Hurd. Hurd resigned from HP over a sexual harassment scandal which involved a former HP contractor and for falsifying his expense reports. He later joined Oracle as its co-president, where he was then sued for a breach of contract.
This news was previously reported by Reuters.
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