Hurd Sued by HP after Joining Oracle

Mark V. Hurd, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard is in the news again. The day after he joined Oracle as Co-President, HP sued him for violating his severance agreement to protect HP's confidential information. HP is relying on the doctrine of inevitable disclosure of trade secrets--that Hurd won't be able to help but reveal HP's trade secrets based on his knowledge of HP and the level of his position at Oracle.

While the action might seem to have some traction, there are some factors that suggest HP's case may be weaker than it first appears. Interestingly, HP had not required Hurd to agree to a noncompete agreement, and California, where the suit was filed, has not "embraced" (in the words of Larry C. Drapkin, a partner at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, who handles trade secret cases) the inevitable disclosure doctrine. Moreover, Oracle and HP are close partners, although they also have products that compete. If they are partners, I suppose it is possible that disclosure of a trade secret could allow Oracle to gain ground in that partnership at HP's expense, but traditionally, the harm that trade secrets law seeks to protect is harm from unfair competition--to talk about competition within the partnership takes a bit of a stretch. If Hurd is not taking part in those lines that do compete directly (Oracle recently bought Sun Microsystems, which does compete with HP), then there wouldn't seem to be a trade secret issue at all.

MM