HP shocked the tech industry earlier this week when it announced it would take an $8.8 billion one time financial charge. HP claims the charge was due to the company's 2011 acquisition of Autonomy, and further claims that the management of Autonomy " .... used accounting improprieties, misrepresentations and disclosure failures to inflate the underlying financial metrics of the company" before HP bought it.
Now Autonomy founder Mike Lynch is speaking out to members of the media, defending himself and the management against HP's allegations. In an interview at Business Insider, Lynch claims that he first became aware of HP's claims against him and the other executives when HP sent out the press release this week. He said, "I was certainly shocked but people certainly realize I'm not going to be used as Hewlett-Packard's scapegoat when it's got itself in a mess."
One of the claims HP has made against Autonomy's former management is that they booked hardware sales as software. Lynch said, "That's complete inaccurate. We booked our hardware sales. They were booked at the correct margins. The idea that somehow we weren't taking that cost—even if you took HP's argument, which is inaccurate, but even if it was, it would make no difference to the bottom line or the top line."
HP has said it will be showing the results of its investigation of Autonomy's numbers to the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s Enforcement Division and the UK’s Serious Fraud Office. It also plans to take certain parties to civil court. We imagine that will include Lynch.
Source: Business Insider | Image via HP
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