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FILE PHOTO: British entrepreneur Mike Lynch leaves the High Court in London, UK, on March 25, 2019. REUTERS / Henry Nicholls / File Photo
May 14, 2019
By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – The former chief financial officer of the British software company Autonomy was sentenced Monday to five years in prison after an American jury convicted him of fraud for selling 11 , $ 1 billion from Autonomy in 2011 at Hewlett-Packard.
Sushovan Hussain, 55, was also fined $ 4 million and US District Judge Charles Breyer lost $ 6.1 million in San Francisco. The defendant plans to appeal.
Hussain and former CEO Mike Lynch are also defendants in a $ 5 billion civil fraud case in the London High Court, where Hewlett-Packard claimed he had charged Autonomy overpaying by fraudulently increasing its value.
This trial began in March and is expected to last several months.
Hussain's lawyers were not immediately available for comment. The US Attorney's Office David Anderson in San Francisco did not comment immediately.
US prosecutors have accused Hussain, originally from his native Bangladesh, of settling in England at the age of seven, of using backdated contracts and other forms of accounting fraud to boost Autonomy's revenue, in order to attract potential buyers.
Hussain, married with two daughters, was sentenced in April 2018 for 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy.
Prosecutors had asked for a 12 – year prison term, while Hussain was not asking for more than a year and a day. Both parties agreed to the fine.
Hussain must go to jail on June 15th.
Autonomy was the cornerstone of former Leo Apotheker's CEO, Hewlett-Packard's strategy of integrating his company's computer and printing business with higher-margin software.
His plan went against him and Hewlett-Packard took a $ 8.8 billion write-down a year after Autonomy's purchase, while accusing Lynch of accounting fraud.
Lynch, who founded Autonomy, was once considered the UK's answer to Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates.
Hewlett-Packard split in 2015 between HP Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co. The latter sold a large part of its software business in 2017.
US prosecutors have also indicted Lynch and former deputy finance chairman of the Autonomy, Stephen Chamberlain, for the Hewlett-Packard acquisition.
Lynch, through its lawyers, denied the wrongdoing and blamed the failure of the acquisition on Hewlett-Packard. Chamberlain pleaded not guilty.
(Report by Jonathan Stempel in New York, edited by Grant McCool and Phil Berlowitz)
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