Slightly disappointed
I was hoping for a slightly more, well, American, Americanism.
"Yippee-kiyay, Motherfucker!!!"
Former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch's barrister has branded HPE's $5bn fraud trial against his client "a case study in buyer's remorse" as the legal battle being heard at London's High Court begins drawing to a close. Robert Miles QC, head of Lynch's platoon of lawyers, began his oral closing arguments yesterday morning in the …
Pretty sure our local Tesco Extra had them at one end of the "Seasonal" Aisle late on the 24th Dec. It may have been the 27th though.
Staff were busy shifting the last of the Xmas chocolate and Gin collections to one end. Then filling the other end with Easter content.
I'm not absolutely convinced that Americanism actually means anything. It seems to me that muting Bruce Willis every time he uses that phrase doesn't deprive any of the Die Hard films of what little meaning they have.
If I had to choose I think I prefer English profanity on the basis that it is at least varied and sometimes humorous. The Irish then move that on a step or tow further :-)
.
Those examples are all verbifications rather than Americanisms.
Personally, I am entirely in favour of verbification. The Calvin & Hobbes strip about "verbing weirds language" was, I think, intended to be a shot at verbification, but it is entirely clear in the meaning it tries to get across...and what else is language for?
"A big tech company whinging because the accounts are complex is pretty special."
And if HP were so careful with their accounting practices they would have avoided "group Autonomy's"hardware sales together with software licence sales in HP's finance system" when they integrated Autonomy's accounts with their own. Which is what Elizabeth Harris (the KPMG witness) stated HP's David Duckworth did.
I am not an accountant, but the KPMG guidance suggested that HP (not Autonomy) had to ensure that revenue was correctly recognised under US GAAP (rather than the international IAS standards Autonomy operated under) - something that due diligence and professional advice during integration could have assisted with.
Does this indicate that HPE are chasing accounting technicalities rather than "fraud" now? Or is this the actual "fraud"? Or is the fraud a minor part of this picture and potentially an issue for Autonomy's US business rather than the whole of Autonomy?
My guess is that Egan's fraud was to pump his US sales numbers - besides that HP have been caught demonstrating how not to acquire a business.
"What HP really want is a win in this civil case (balance of probabilities) to use in their upcoming criminal case (beyond all reasonable doubt). Doubt if they'll get it."
What HPE want is not to lose. While winning this case may allow them to take assets from Lynch and Hussein and ensure both are imprisoned in the US for their part the flip side is that if they lose, future cases become "shareholders vs HPE" or "shareholders vs former execs of HP" and that is what worries Meg and HPE the most.
Leo has demonstrated he wasn't up to the HP CEO role with his testimony in this case, justifying the board's actions to remove him. The reality is that the board supported him and this is just as much about HP's actions post-purchase under Meg and the actions taken. Were they in HP's best interests or the boards?
This post has been deleted by its author
HP could try that but when eBay check the bidding history and discover that HP created a second account to bid up Autonomy's price to stop Oracle bidding, their case would fall apart.
Far easier to go to the US courts with the "a mean foreign company tricked us" routine.
Oracle had a presentation for acquiring Autonomy given to them by a bank called Qatalyst Partners. They were working with Autonomy but it is unclear if the presentations were made on Autonomy's behalf or an attempt by Qatalyst Partners to generate interest in an acquisition that they would subsequently broker. The presentations are here
and here. Larry wasn't interested as the proposed price ($10.3bn) was an 80% premium over the market capitalisation.
Leo mentioned the threat of a bid from Oracle but I'm unsure if there was anything more than rumour to this between the initial bid and acquisition.
It's worth noting that this was the time of HP vs Oracle over Oracle support for Itanium products, so tensions were running pretty high between them and the ability to deliver the other a black eye (either by beating the other to acquire a company or dismiss an acquisition as over-priced) may have been too hard to resist.
I thought pre-textual as a description of a document meant that it was written in hieroglyphics? Or possibly crayon...
Such as say HPE's internal due dillegence report on the purchase of Autonomy. Which turned out to be the word SHINY!!!!! scrawled in pink highlighted 3" tall high letters 200 times.
Thank you! Many English words that made their way across the Atlantic fell out of use here and are now considered "Americanisms." One such word is "trash" which was in use in these isles in the late 18th century in reference to a novel as trashy. OED says it comes from late Middle English.
Besides, some reporters on here are writing from the US, so let them use their own vernacular.
A lot of the verbing of nouns and other such supposed grammatical horrors turns out to be very old when you look into it. Just like the people who complain about the Americans' overuse of Zs in words like realise - where when you look it turns out that realize was the correct spelling when the first colonists left and they just never bothered to change a good thing. I think the dropping of Us from words like colour is a 19th Century thing though.
Deloitte signed off the books and HP didn't bother to do their homework. A big tech company whinging because the accounts are complex is pretty special.
American tax system is complicated. This is where the Big 4 make a pile of money.
At the end of it all, Deloitte and KPMG adviced against the deal. However, Leo Apothecker decided to overrule their recommendation.
Why is HP suing Autonomy (instead of Leo) is beyond me.
I can't wait for the result of the hostile takeover by Xerox of HP. I'd like to find out what "colorful" accounting practice HP is doing.
They're not suing Leo out of self-preservation.
If they went after Leo, it would call into question the board's judgement in appointing him in the first place, all of the correspondence and communication between board members (before, during and after his tenure). The number of skeletons falling out of various closets and the fallout in either direction would probably prove useful ammunition for any pending shareholder lawsuit against HP and it's board of directors (and I've no doubt there will be one after this omnishambles).
Far easier to blame Autonomy and Lynch (the outsider) than start exposing the inner manglement circle to the scrutiny of the outside world...
.....despite her continued errors.
The one that always makes me smile the most is knowing she spend $144m (that's not a typo) of her own money on her run for California Governor on a Republican ticket in 2010.....Oh did I laugh, when I saw the results.