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Extract from an article by Natasha Lomas on TechCrunch
U.K. entrepreneur turned billionaire investor Mike Lynch has been charged with fraud in the U.S. over the 2011 sale of his enterprise software company.
Lynch sold Autonomy, the big data company he founded back in 1996, to computer giant HP for around $11 billion some seven years ago.
But within a year around three-quarters of the value of the business had been written off, with HP accusing Autonomy’s management of accounting misrepresentations and disclosure failures.
Lynch has always rejected the allegations, and after HP sought to sue him in U.K. courts he countersued in 2015.
Read the complete article at DoJ charges Autonomy founder with fraud over $11BN sale to HP
Extract from an article by Richard Chirgwin in The Register
In a statement sent to The Reg, attorneys for Mike Lynch, Chris Morvillo of Clifford Chance and Reid Weingarten of Steptoe & Johnson, said:
“This indictment is a travesty of justice. Mike Lynch is a world-leading entrepreneur who started from nothing and spent his life building a multi-billion dollar technology business that solved critical problems for companies and governments all around the world. These stale allegations are meritless and we reject them emphatically.
“There was no conspiracy at Autonomy and no fraud against HP for the DoJ to take up. HP has a long history of failed acquisitions. Autonomy was merely the latest successful company it destroyed. HP has sought to blame Autonomy for its own crippling errors and has falsely accused Mike Lynch to cover its own tracks.
“Mike Lynch will not be a scapegoat for their failures. He has done nothing wrong and will vigorously defend the charges against him.”
Additional Reading
- An Abridged Look at the Business of eDiscovery: A Short List of eDiscovery Investors
- An Abridged Look at the Business of eDiscovery: Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments
Source: ComplexDiscovery