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Serious Fraud Office Drop Investigation Into Autonomy Accounting

Posted by Soulskill on from the government-agencies-with-funny-names dept.

mrspoonsi sends up an update on the investigation into Autonomy, a software company acquired by HP in 2011. HP paid a staggering $11.7 billion in the deal, then later wrote off $8.8 billion and claimed Autonomy's management intentionally defrauded them. The UK Serious Fraud Office opened a case on the matter in 2013, but that investigation has now been dropped. According to the Office's press release, they felt there was "insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction," given the information they had to work with. Autonomy is not off the hook, however — the case has now been entirely ceded to U.S. authorities.

9 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Just a thought... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, in their quest to be like Facebook and Google by snapping up technology for obscene money, they forgot to do "due diligence", and now they are pissed?

    HP used to be such a great technology company, until they switched to the printer ink scam... At least they sold off their bench test equipment designs to a company that is still producing fairly nice stuff.

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    1. Re:Just a thought... by khasim · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So, in their quest to be like Facebook and Google by snapping up technology for obscene money, they forgot to do "due diligence", and now they are pissed?

      At $10 BILLION I don't think there is any "forgot" here.

      Even at the time of the deal the price was questionable. It was 10x more than Autonomy was possibly worth.

      I would say "follow the money" but it is sounding like someone did not complete their part of the deal.

      HP used to be such a great technology company, until they switched to the printer ink scam.

      Yeah. This sounds more like an attempt to loot the company that didn't pan out.

  2. When does the investigation into HP start? by JoeyRox · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For executive gross negligence in failing to do proper due diligence before completing their horrible acquisition of Autonomy and then covering it up by attributing it to fraud.

    1. Re:When does the investigation into HP start? by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Not excusing HP but if someone is looking to intentionally defraud in this scenario and they have control of the information, books, invoices etc that are handed to HP then it is nearly impossible to ever be 100% certain before an acquisition, at some point you have to trust that the people you are dealing with and if you are then found to have been duped you get the police involved.

      With a deal this big, HP might have wanted to verify the numbers through independent sources?

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      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    2. Re:When does the investigation into HP start? by NicBenjamin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I doubt it.

      These shareholders are the exact same people who fired Walter Hewlett for opposing the Compaq merger.

  3. This is serious... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Autonomy is not off the hook, however â" the case has now been entirely ceded to U.S. authorities.

    Handed over to the U.S. Petty Fraud Department, where a slap on the wrist and a generous tax break for HP will be quickly administrated. Move along. Nothing to see here.

  4. Just another in a long series of misguided mergers by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Insightful

    HP has a very long history of buying companies only to unload them for cents on the dollar a few years later. Remember Palm and WebOS? Take a look at the HP Acquisition List on Wikipedia. Not many of those companies were good buys.

    This was another of many issues that contributed to staff depression while I was there and continues to this day. We could see it was wrong, but could do nothing about it.

    They used to be the company engineers wanted to work for. When I got to Pixar in '81, the engineers that had been at HP were still proud of having worked there. It's really sad what's happened.

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    Bruce Perens.
  5. Re:HP Paid silly money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They painted too rosy a future? F*off. You're just incompetent.

    That's damn right. What do they think this is, nursery school? HP lost money because management was stupid and the shareholders lost money because they put their faith in half wits. They both deserved to lose that money, it's how the economy reallocates resources to smarter people who will put them to more effective use. To quote Nelson Muntz, "Ha Ha"!

  6. Re:confusing headline. by pz · · Score: 1, Insightful

    And two little letters "UK" at the start of the headline would have eliminated all ambiguity. The headline is an example of prima facie editorial failure.

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