A Delaware court dismissed a shareholder lawsuit seeking to hold Hewlett-Packard Co.'s (HPQ) board responsible for approving former chief executive Mark Hurd's $40-million severance after he resigned in August 2010, Reuters reported on its website Friday. Hurd, who is now co-president of Oracle Corp. (ORCL), resigned following allegations of sexual harassment against marketing contractor Jodie Fisher. He was exonerated of those allegations by an internal H-P investigation, but the probe found he had filed inaccurate expense reports. Shareholder Lawrence Zucker sued H-P's board, claiming they wasted company money by agreeing to such a large severance instead of firing Hurd for cause and paying him nothing. But Judge Donald Parsons of the Delaware Chancery Court ruled the board acted in good faith in approving the payment, adding that denying severance to Hurd could have hurt the computer maker by making it more difficult to find a replacement, Reuters reported. Parsons also dismissed a claim accusing H-P of poor succession planning, the report said. Full story at http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/22/us-hp-hurd-lawsuit-idUSBRE85L0XE2012062 Write to nymonitoring@dowjones.com
