Principals Steve Cooper and Stan Sieler of Allegro Consultants announced they reached a settlement over felony charges that the company stole HP trade secrets while enabling HP 3000 maintenance software to be used by third-party support providers. The charges before a California municipal court have been dropped in exchange for Allegro’s payment of $250 in restitution to HP and a pledge to do volunteer service by Allegro’s principals. Cooper said that the company “facilitated access to HP software that was necessary to perform legitimate hardware maintenance,” a service performed as a contracted project for $250. In a press statement, the company’s officials said, “The officer in charge of the investigation acknowledged in the pre-trial hearing that there was no evidence suggesting that we ever intended to facilitate any unlawful use of HP software. Allegro Consultants was unaware of any misuse of the software by others until such misuse became public in 1998.” Allegro pleaded no contest to a single misdemeanor offense.