"The FCC's compliance agreement with HP ensures that HP will train its employees thoroughly on the FCC's gift and other E-Rate rules, and provides for audits of HP's E-Rate business," said Austin Schlick, General Counsel of the FCC, in a statement.

"If HP fails to monitor its E-Rate activities closely and abide by E-Rate Program requirements, it will face substantial penalties," he said.

HP said in a statement in response to the settlement: "HP requires that all employees and partners adhere to lawful and ethical business practices. The activities at the center of this investigation occurred more than five years ago, the partner relationships have been terminated and the employees involved are no longer with the company. HP fully cooperated with the authorities and the matter is now resolved."

Patrick Thibodeau covers SaaS and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .

in Computerworld's DRM and Legal Issues Topic Center.