Former Autonomy chief Mike Lynch says HP silent over accusations of inflated revenue

Former Autonomy boss Mike Lynch said neither he nor his lawyers had been contacted by HP over accusations he had made in November 2012 that the company's revenues were inflated.

Lynch said at the London Web Summit that nothing had been heard from HP and the only thing that had happened was that the FRC (Financial Reporting Council), that checked auditors' performance, had said it was going to look at how the audits of the company were done.

He added, Autonomy wanted to hear from HP, and that he had demanded to see what information it had to back up its claims of Autonnomy's profits having been inflated.

Lynch said it was a bizarre situation where someone could arrange a series of interviews proclaiming something and then was not prepared to back it up, adding the lack of communication may turn into a big issue.

Meg Whitman, HP chief, claimed in November that HP had discovered "serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations" in Autonomy's business after its acquisition in 2011 for over $10 billion and also a charge of $8.8 billion against the acquisition.

Repeatedly denying Whitman's accusations, Lynch challenged Whitman and HP's board to produce evidence to support their claim.

According to Lynch, the problems at Autonomy after its takeover had come due to the "assets" of his software company – its people – having become disillusioned with working inside a bigger organisation, where the strategy under which the company was bought – to focus on software and services – was reversed to emphasise hardware such as PCs and printers.

Wired.co.uk quoted Lynch's explanation over why he sold HP, sying that once a company became public the choice was taken out of its hands. He added, when a tech company came along and offered 60 per cent over the share price, the target company had to sell.