Ellison Blasts H-P Over Hurd Departure

SAN FRANCISCO (TheStreet) -- Oracle (ORCL) - Get Report CEO Larry Ellison ripped the board of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) - Get Report for its handling of the resignation of former CEO Mark Hurd.

"In losing Mark Hurd, the H-P board failed to act in the best interest of H.P.'s employees, shareholders, customers and partners," Ellison wrote in an email to

The New York Times

, which posted excerpts of the email late Monday. "The H-P board admits that it fully investigated the sexual harassment claims against Mark and found them to be utterly false."

Hurd, who is a friend of Ellison's, resigned late Friday after H-P's investigation determined there was no violation of H-P's sexual harassment policy, but did find violations of H-P's standards of business conduct.

Mike Holston, H-P's General Counsel, said the company had unearthed irregularities in payments made to the contractor, as well as Hurd's expense reports. "It was a systematic pattern of improper expenses and inaccurate reports," he said.

Ellison disclosed in his email to the

Times

that H-P's board voted 6 to 4 in preliminary discussions over the disclosure issue, and later made the decision unanimous. Ellison declined to give the

Times

the source of his information.

Ellison said H-P's board made "the worst personnel decision" since

Apple

(AAPL) - Get Report

fired Steve Jobs. "That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn't come back and saved them," Ellison wrote, according to the

Times

report.

-- Written by Robert Holmes in Boston

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