News release

Statement by Mark V. Hurd, HP Chairman and CEO

U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

The following are excerpts from testimony delivered today by Mark V. Hurd, HP chairman and chief executive officer, before the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee:

"HP is a company that has consistently earned recognition for our adherence to standards of ethics, privacy and corporate responsibility. And yet these practices that we have taken such pride in were disregarded by people inside the company and by people outside the company whom we hired. This committee rightfully wonders what happened.

"What began as a proper and serious inquiry of leaks to the press of sensitive company information became a rogue investigation that violated our own principles and values. It's an age-old story. The ends came to justify the means. The investigators became so focused on finding the source of the leaks that they lost sight of the privacy of reporters and others. They lost sight of the values that this company has always represented.

"I want to apologize to those whose privacy was infringed upon. This includes nine journalists and their families, two current HP employees and seven former or current HP board members and their families. To varying degrees, these individuals investigated through the use of pretexting, techniques used to obtain their telephone information.

"In addition to a heartfelt apology, I want those whose privacy was violated to know that we will soon provide to the victims the details regarding the information obtained about them, the means by which it was obtained and when it was obtained.

"Our culture, our core, which we call the HP Way, remains strong and ethical. But, clearly, changes are in order. Mistakes will happen - and these are very serious and unsettling ones that we've been discussing. But what matters ultimately is how a company addresses the mistakes. HP has taken specific actions and will take further actions in the days and weeks ahead. These actions include:

• We have accepted the resignations of our previous chairman and our general counsel. Other employees have left the company.



• We have appointed a new lead independent director.



• We have appointed Bart Schwartz, the former head of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's Office under Rudy Giuliani, to do an assessment of current practices and develop future best practices so that our processes will be without peer.



• We are putting into place new measures to maintain the highest levels of information privacy.

I pledge three things to this committee, to our employees, to our shareholders, to those whose privacy was violated:

• I pledge that I will dig harder and deeper and I will get to the bottom of this.



• I pledge that HP will take whatever steps necessary to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.



• And I pledge that this company will regain not just its reputation as a model citizen with the highest ethical standards … we will regain our pride."

A full transcript of Hurd's testimony will be available at http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press_kits/2006/boardconf/index.html.

About HP

HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company’s offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging and printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended July 31, 2006, HP revenue totaled $90.0 billion. More information about HP (NYSE, Nasdaq: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.