Re: Not necessarily!
A few further facts:
- HP purchased Autonomy for around US$11.7B
- Autonomy's stated asset value was around US$3.2B
- HPE wrote down the Autonomy purchase by US$8.8B to US$2.9B
i.e. Autonomy wasn't even worth it's stated asset value that included more than US$1B in cash, although a significant part of those assets were US$1.3B in goodwill.
All of the reported fraud is supposedly in the low ten's of millions over one financial year. Although HPE dispute how some of the revenue was recorded as differences between UK and US accounting requirements, there doesn't appear to have been any actions that .
Given the relatively inconsequential amounts involved in the fraud (relative to the larger financial picture), combined with an over inflated purchase price and then a very significant write down, the court case appears to largely be a delaying tactic or sideshow to avoid HPE shareholder action directly against HPE once the court action fails or shows former staff were liable for a fraction of the losses HP suffered rather than the ~US5B that HP are seeking.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
