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New book from ousted HP CEO

Rachel Dornhelm Oct 10, 2006
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New book from ousted HP CEO

Rachel Dornhelm Oct 10, 2006
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MARK AUSTIN THOMAS: Carly Fiorina hits the bookstores today. Her memoir “Tough Choices” chronicles her time as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Rachel Dornhelm reports.


RACHEL DORNHELM: After the Enron and WorldCom melt downs, Congress enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley reforms.

They were meant to swing more oversight responsibility to company boards.

Securities lawyer Lance Kimmel says this came to a head around the time Carly Fiorina was ousted.

LANCE KIMMEL: Sarbanes Oxley may have allowed certain board members to feel more emboldened that they were a little bit safer in speaking up, because it was going to be difficult in a Sarbanes-Oxley environment for there to be retribution.

Kimmel says Sarbanes-Oxley has mainly helped businesses be more functional, but ironically at HP, with its long-term struggle of personalities, the slight shift could have accelerated the scandal

Kimmel expects Fiorina’s book will add more details to a story that will likely take a long time to tell.

I’m Rachel Dornhelm for Marketplace.

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