Hewlett-Packard sets out case claiming Autonomy fraud

The war of words between Hewlett-Packard and former members of Autonomy’s management team continued yesterday after the US technology group set out its most detailed account of claims that a “multibillion-dollar” fraud took place at the British software maker.

HP released a number of documents in a court filing in California on Friday expanding on its argument that Autonomy's executives concocted deals to fraudulently attempt to inflate its value before its $11 billion acquisition by the US group.

In its latest legal filing, HP disclosed a list of Autonomy’s top 40 clients, which the UK company had provided to display its financial strength.

Vatican project

In March 2010, Autonomy booked a sale of $11 million to MicroTech to cover software for a potential deal with the Vatican to digitise its library. In fact, the Vatican struck a deal with Japan’s

NTT

Group.

This list disclosed by HP suggests the Vatican deal represented Autonomy’s fourth-biggest deal. But HP has also released a letter from the Vatican officials which said that it “has never dealt with the company MicroTech and was not even aware of its involvement with Autonomy at the time”.

HP argues that this shows that during the due diligence process, “Autonomy executives lied about whether there was ever any sale to the Vatican at all, and also concealed the fact that there were resellers involved in the major contracts”. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014