Joe Nocera at the Times takes the board of directors at HP to task for hiring as its new CEO Leo Apotheker who was CEO of SAP when that company admitted theft of key intellectual property assets from major competitor Oracle.

The HP board had some two months ago ousted Wall Street darling CEO Mark Hurd for what appeared to be minor expense account issues, but somehow was so enamored of Apotheker, apparently in part for his minor role as a liason between HP and SAP during his brief and disastrous 8 months as SAP CEO, that they rewarded him a compensation package worth tens of millions.

HP recently tapped the services of hotshot defense lawyer Alan Ruby to go after Hurd when he joined Oracle for the mere possibility that he might, someday, misuse confidential business information for Oracle that he gleaned while at HP. Ruby should stay near the phone – the hapless HP board may need him again to bail their new CEO out of trouble.