Re: Mike Lynch not guilty of defrauding HP

On 6/13/2024 8:34 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:

On 2024-06-12, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:

On 6/12/2024 1:24 PM, Robert A. Brooks wrote:

On 6/12/2024 8:34 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:

[This happened several days ago, so I am surprised to see nobody has
mentioned it yet.]
>
The criminal trial of Mike Lynch of Autonomy, which saw him extradited
from the UK against his will, has ended in disaster for HP, as he has
been found not guilty of all charges.
>
https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/06/mike_lynch_cleared/
>
I wonder if this is going to have any implications for today's HP.

>
If anything, I'd expect it would affect HPE, not HP, Inc.
>
However, given that HP(E) took a massive writeoff for the Autonomy fiasco
awhile ago, I suspect it'll have a tiny impact, if at all.

>
I don't think there will be any impact.
>
According to the article there has been 3 separate trials.
>
Civil fraud case in the UK. HPE won and they are currently
fighting over the compensation amount. HPE wants 4 B$.
>

 I wonder if there is now a case for an appeal or a major reduction in
the amount of penalty that needs to be paid.
 

Criminal case against Autonomy CFO in the US. He was
convicted and served 5 years.

 Likewise.
 

Criminal case against Autonomy CEO in the US. He has now
been acquitted. His defense seems to have focused on that
he was involved in product development and product sales
but not in financial reports.

 The fact these prior two cases exist make me even more surprised about
the not guilty verdict in this case. Regardless of how you look at it,
it was _very_ clear that HP did not do their homework when deciding whether
to buy Autonomy which made the guilty verdicts in the first two cases
even more surprising.

I think the 3 cases had very different questions to answer:
Is is proven that Autonomy provided false information to HP before the deal?
Is is proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Autonomy CFO knew the information was false?
Is is proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Autonomy CEO knew the information was false?
3 different courts said: YES, YES and NO.
Nothing inconsistent in that.
If the main reason behind the CEO's acquittal was that the jury
believed there was reasonable doubt about how much he knew about
the company's accounting practices, then the verdict means
nothing for the two other trials.
+++
And I don't think buyer not checking information provided by
seller is a good argument for that false information does
not mean fraud.
Arne