Mark Hurd Dispute Settled By Oracle, HP

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Oracle and HP have settled the lawsuit over former HP CEO Mark Hurd and his arrival at Oracle. If you recall, Hurd was ousted from HP after expense report fraud involving a marketing contract, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison called the move “stupid” and later put his money where his mouth is by hiring Hurd.

HP later sued Hurd and Oracle, claiming that the hiring was in violation of Hurd’s severance package and that Hurd would take trade secrets with him. Oracle and HP are barely competitors, though. And HP said during the post-Hurd conference call that Hurd rarely was involved in the day-to-day operations of HP. And, such noncompete clauses rarely are held up in court in the State of California. But, HP sued Oracle and Hurd anyway.

Now, they’ve reach any agreement, it’s being reported. HP is convinced that Hurd can “protect HP’s confidential information while fulfilling his responsibilities at Oracle.” Oracle made some comments to the effect that the Hurd lawsuit would damage the business relationship between Oracle and HP. The statement from HP also reaffirms that Oracle and HP’s long-term “strategy partnership” is safe.

Just after that news broke, AllThingD’s Kara Swisher reported that (possibly as a condition of the deal) Hurd was giving up his $30-$40 million in stock options that was awarded to him as apart of the severance package. (Even though it was reported that Hurd had already cashed them in.) He’ll still get to keep the $12 million in cash, though. Again, comments from HP hasn’t confirmed that the stock option forfeit is officially apart of the settlement between the two tech giants, but why would a guy give up $30-$40 million unless he had to?