They had gathered at this community college building for one of the most closely watched corporate events in years: a shareholders meeting to decide if Hewlett-Packard Co. should acquire Compaq Computer Corp. for $22 billion. During the previous four months, Hewlett, the son of company co-founder William Hewlett and an HP director for 15 years, had waged an unprecedented proxy fight to kill the deal.
At 8:40 a.m., after the start of the meeting had been delayed for 20 minutes, HP Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Carleton “Carly” Fiorina stood on stage and declared the polls open for shareholder voting. Next to her on stage were General Counsel Ann Baskins and another in-house lawyer, who were both seated at a table, wearing headsets. On the other end of the headsets was HP’s lead outside lawyer, Larry Sonsini of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, who was watching from the wings and relaying messages to the lawyers on stage.
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