Lexmark gags senior HP exec

HP's senior vice president of worldwide enterprise sales has been forbidden from discussing the company's North American policy following litigation from a competitor. 

Bruce Dahlgren left Lexmark to join HP's Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) in January 2006. 

However, his role is currently restricted to Europe, the Middle East and Africa until one year after leaving Lexmark.

Dahlgren told a customer and analyst at a conference in San Francisco that litigation from Lexmark is "restricting my activity at this time to outside the North Americas".

Lexmark sued HP in April over its hiring of Dahlgren, citing a non-compete clause in his contract. HP countersued, questioning the legality of the contractual clause.

Slides used by Dahlgren showing changes to HP's IPG enterprise business carried the tagline 'Being implemented outside of North America only at this time.'

"We hired Bruce Dahlgren from Lexmark and he was running North America so we are respecting that particular part of the arrangement," said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of HP IPG.

"He has a non-compete so he cannot really play out the strategy that he talked about in North America."