"If there is something fishy the accountants or auditors are supposed to raise flags. "
Another interesting question.
Did they? If they didn't they don't sound very good at their job.
OTOH if they said "Some of this looks very dubious. We can't confirm more than 10% of these transactions as real" and the CEO said "What do you know? This deal is happening. It's the crowning glory of my career in huge deals" that would be a rather different story.
I wonder what the audit trail between HP and it's appointed auditors (I'll bet they are one of the Big Five) would say.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
