A shareholder-advisory group has accused Hewlett-Packard Co directors, including the computer maker's recently appointed Chief Executive Leo Apotheker, of breaking company rules by naming new board members with ties to the CEO, Bloomberg said.

Institutional Shareholder Services Inc (ISS), which advises shareholders on corporate governance matters, alleged in a report that Apotheker played a direct role in picking the five new board members and thereby violated board rules governing director selection, Bloomberg said.

HP officials could not immediately be reached by Reuters for comment.

According to Bloomberg, the ISS report said that one of the new directors sits on a board in Europe with Apotheker, while at least three others have been customers of German software maker SAP AG , where Apotheker was CEO and worked for many years.

ISS officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson; Editing by Dhara Ranasinghe)

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