[1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870330970457541...
"[Hurd] submitted inaccurate expense reports that were intended to conceal... a 'close personal relationship'".
Without knowing the details, this sounds to me like a minor indiscretion and being on the wrong side of politics. The article says - "The amount of money in question wasn't disclosed." Sounds to me like we're talking about a rounding error in HP's expenses - a wrong-doing, to be sure, but one that only makes the ax fall on you when combined with politics.
If I was Oracle I'd do a thorough interview, ask some tough questions about the event, and ask how he feels about behaving squeaky clean at Oracle. Or even having him agree to expense auditing - you could break that in a diplomatic way by saying, "Hey, I want to recruit you, but the board has misgivings. Would you be comfortable having your expense account audited?" If he says yes, I'd be cool with having him onboard.
But again, we don't have the numbers, so I'm just guessing about the nature of it here. I could be dead wrong, in which case I'd change my mind.
Alternatively, perhaps Oracle doesn't care about this sort of thing at all. The money he misappropriated at HP was probably a drop in the ocean compared to a normal CEO's expense account. Oracle might treat it as such.
I think most folks believe that the amounts and concealment were not really issues, as neither was either significant or deliberate.
I think the real issue was that the board was too weak to deal with what they expected the media fallout to be after the beating they took in their last scandal.