The founder of Lynch's Independence is preparing to face the courts in Hewlett-Packard for $ 5 billion

LONDON (Reuters) – Mike Lynch, who has already been hailed as Britain's answer to Bill Gates, faces Hewlett-Packard (HP) on Monday at the London High Court in a multi-billion dollar showdown. the purchase of Autonomy software by the American company founded.

The case is part of a dispute between HP and Lynch that has lasted more than six years on the person responsible for the disastrous deal, which ultimately cost the shareholders of Silicon Valley billions of dollars.

HP claims approximately $ 5 billion in damages to Lynch and his former colleague, Sushovan Hussain, alleging that they had inflated the value of Autonomy before selling Big Data, whose software researches and organizes information unstructured, such as telephone conversations.

Lynch denied these accusations and said the failure of the $ 11 billion acquisition was due to HP's mismanagement.

Aged 53, whose doctoral dissertation is one of the most consulted at the University of Cambridge, he claims more than $ 160 million in damages for loss and damage caused by HP's stock.

The autonomy was supposed to be the centerpiece of a plan to turn HP's PC and printer manufacturer into a software-driven business services company. , an evolution successfully undertaken by IBM over the past two decades.

Lynch is engaged in a war of words with HP since being fired by former HP CEO, Meg Whitman, in 2012, less than a year after finalizing the deal.

The entrepreneur has maintained his position on the British technology scene by investing in a series of new companies and joining organizations such as the Royal Society.

However, the stakes of the conflict intensified in November when Lynch and Stephen Chamberlain, another former leader of Autonomy, were charged with wire fraud in the United States, with a maximum penalty of 20 years. # 39; imprisonment.

An amended indictment filed on Friday added charges against the two men, including a head of securities fraud against Lynch, which could sentence him to 25 years in prison.

Lynch has retired from her advisory role to the government and Royal Society committees. Hussain was found guilty in a related case in April 2018, but has not yet been sentenced.

SOFTWARE STRATEGY

The autonomy agreement began to turn sour even before it was finalized. Many shareholders have hesitated over the 79% premium, strategy architect Leo Apotheker has been sacked and the HP board has considered the possibility of leaving.

And just over a year after its completion, HP said it discovered "serious accounting irregularities" that had inflated the value of Autonomy, thus canceling more than $ 5 billion related to this failed deal.

That's the amount he's looking for now at Lynch, which has received about $ 800 million for his participation in Autonomy, and Hussain.

HP will argue that Autonomy's management has achieved undeclared and loss-making hardware sales and misrepresented revenue, which would increase Autonomy's value.

Lynch will reject all claims of HP, indicates his defense, as shown by a counterclaim.

Lynch says HP executives have been campaigning for several years to shift responsibility for their failures in acquiring and integrating Autonomy.

The case is expected to last until the end of the year and it will take another six months for the judge to reach a decision.