14 DAY TRIAL // Atul Mahotra joined the HP team two years ago, in May 2006, as VP (short for vice president) of the printing division. After just four months he was fired after he was accused of leaking private information from IBM, his previous employer, to his current employer. Mahotra was brought to justice and the San Jose court found him guilty. The data in question was sent in the form of an e-mail message to a senior VP and it contained pricing information which he obtained while working as a printer sales director for IBM.
The e-mail was entitled "for your eyes only" and was sent by Mahotra to another vice president within HP. The sensitive information did not win him any favors as HP immediately launched an official investigation, at the end of which Atul Malhotra was fired and the authorities were informed about the situation.
HP officials have released a statement in which they clarify that HP policy does not tolerate actions such as Mr. Malhotra's, but when contacted by the New York Times they refused to comment any further.
Getting in touch with one of Malhotra's lawyers did not yield any better results - according to his voice mail he is on vacation and cannot be contacted - and the prosecution did not wish to comment on Mr. Malhotra's indictment either.
The intriguing thing is that after Malhotra was fired, another similar incident was discovered within HP. It would seem that data mining is nothing new to the top brass at HP. There is a slight difference though: when Vice President of the printing division Atul Malhotra was caught, he was fired and the authorities were called in, but when the board of directors was involved, none of the high ranking HP officers were forced to resign. It all boils down to how HP enforces its own policies.