HP veep charged for passing on IBM trade secrets

IT’S TIPPING UP TO be a busy week down in old San Jose District Court, what with Apple execs getting juiced and now reports that a former HP VP could be in trouble for passing on IBM sales secrets to his new bosses.

Atul Malhotra was an IBM director of global printer sales from 1997-2006. But it is claimed that, just months after leaving IBM and taking up his new post as HP’s vice president for imaging and printing services, Malhotra forwarded confidential IBM memos, which he’d been asked not to circulate, directly to two of his senior bosses.

Malhotra has been charged with ‘theft of trade secrets’, something not likely to embellish his CV. The secrets in question appear to be contained in a memo with the title IBM Global Services, CC Calibration Metrics. Malhotra is said to have forwarded the memo to two senior HP VPs with the clichéd subject line: "For Your Eyes Only."

The startled veeps immediately reported Malhotra’s unethical behaviour, resulting in his termination.

An HP spokeswoman sternly noted that the firm had, of course, "self-reported the activity to all appropriate enforcement agencies and to IBM", and was cooperating fully with the government’s investigation.

It seems Malhotra is unlikely to be given another licence to print for a long time to come. µ

L’Inq
Charging doc (courtesy of Wired)