[Info-vax] HPE going after Mike Lynch's estate

[Simon Clubley]

On 2024-09-17, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>
> Lynch, who was on Friday waiting to find out if he could be extradited 
> to the US to face a separate criminal trial, was found to have defrauded 
> HP by manipulating Autonomy?s accounts to inflate the value of the 
> company. He has always denied the accusation and said on Friday that he 
> would appeal.
>

This is the same legal system that said hundreds of innocent people were
ripping off the Post Office and then proceeded to destroy their lives.
Since the details of that became fully public, my opinion of our legal
system in related matters has taken a massive nosedive.

> ?Claimants have substantially succeeded in their claims in this 
> proceeding,? said Mr Justice Hildyard, after a 93-day trial during which 
> 28,000 documents were considered as evidence..
>
> He said the damages were likely to be significantly less than the $5bn 
> claimed by Hewlett-Packard (HP) and successor companies, while he also 
> cast doubt on the reliability of some of the US firm?s witnesses.
>
> However, he ruled that HP had been induced into overpaying for the 
> takeover, due to fraud perpetrated by Lynch and Autonomy?s former 
> finance director, Sushovan Hussain, who is in jail in the US after being 
> found guilty of fraud relating to the same deal .

Annoying how the fact that HP never even completed the expected due
diligence before purchase doesn't enter into this decision.

Also, the numbers don't add up. From:

https://www.cio.com/article/304397/the-hp-autonomy-lawsuit-timeline-of-an-ma-disaster.html

the claim is that Autonomy overstated its revenue by US$700 million yet
HP did a multi-billion USD writedown. HP massively overpaid for Autonomy
and are trying to deflect blame away from their massive screwup in both
overpaying and not even waiting for the due diligence to be completed.

How do you get from a $700 million fraud claim to a $5 billion+ writedown ?

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.