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Hurd says vacant board seats not yet filled

Chairman and CEO Hurd says HP is still looking to fill board vacancies in the wake the spying scandal

Hewlett-Packard Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd says the company is still in the process of refilling empty seats on its board caused by resignations related to the company's spying scandal.

"We're working on it," Hurd said on a conference call with reporters Thursday discussing HP's fourth-quarter financial results. But he declined to give a timetable when the board will bring in new members to replace three who left the board this year in the wake of the scandal.

Patricia Dunn resigned in September over her role in ordering an investigation to determine which directors were leaking confidential board deliberations to the media. She is one of five people charged in state court with using illegal methods to obtain phone records of people being investigated. Dunn pleaded not guilty to the charges at an arraignment Wednesday in Santa Clara County Superior Court in California.

Director George Keyworth also resigned in September after having been identified by the investigation as the one who had leaked board discussions. Director Thomas Perkins resigned in May, protesting the methods he learned had been used to obtain his own phone records.

Neither Perkins nor Keyworth have been charged in the criminal investigation by the Office of the California Attorney General.

Hurd, who was already a director, ascended to the position of chairman upon Dunn's resignation. The board currently has eight members, including Hurd.

"I want to make sure we have the best board we can possibly have and the best board on the planet," he said.

Hurd also gave no timetable on when HP would release the results of an internal review of its business practices in the wake of the scandal.

After the scandal broke, Hurd appointed Bart Schwartz, a former deputy U.S. Attorney, as outside counsel to perform an independent assessment of HP's current investigative practices and to develop future best practices.

"I'm trying to not only understand exactly what happened in the case that's been talked about, but also how we're going to lead in this area going forward," Hurd said Thursday. "We want to be the kind of company that people look up to."

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More about: Hewlett-Packard, HIS Limited, HP

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