Hewlett-Packard has agreed to a financial settlement with The New York Times and three BusinessWeek journalists in connection with the company’s pretexting scandal that took place in 2006. Terms of the private settlement were not disclosed.
Former HP chairwoman Patricia C. Dunn and several high-ranking executives retained investigators to pretext, or pretend to be someone else, in order to obtain private records from phone companies to uncover what they believed was disloyal and risky leaks from the company’s board. Five lawsuits brought by other journalists and their families are still pending in August 2007 in San Francisco Superior Court.
