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(UK) Autonomy boss in 'deliberate fraud', court told
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47691083Autonomy boss in 'deliberate fraud', court told
25 March 2019
The founder of software giant Autonomy, Mike Lynch, "committed a deliberate fraud over a sustained period of time" to artificially inflate its value, the High Court was told on Monday.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) is suing Mr Lynch and former chief financial officer Sushovan Hussain for $5bn (£3.8bn).
They claim the two "artificially inflated Autonomy's reported revenues, revenue growth and gross margins".
(snip)
The two men deny the claims and Mr Lynch, who was present at Monday's hearing, has launched a counter-claim for at least $125m in damages against HP for "a series of false, misleading and unfair public statements" about his alleged responsibility for supposed accounting irregularities and misrepresentations at Autonomy.
The 53-year-old, from Suffolk, argues that, at the time of the sale, Cambridge-based Autonomy was an "innovative technology company and a success story" and that HP "botched the purchase of Autonomy and destroyed the company".
The High Court also heard on Monday that HP announced it was writing down $8.8bn of Autonomy's value just over a year after it bought the business, because, it said, it had found "serious accounting improprieties".
(snip)