Comments on: HPQ – Eggs in flight

By: Tim Nash

Tim Nash — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 15:51:12 +0000

Autonomy was a UK company. Its officers were largely based in the UK. HP made fraud allegations to the SFO in the UK and has a substantial subsidiary there. Many of the witnesses, from Deloittes etc. will be in the UK. So it is easy to establish jurisdiction in the UK, where most harm to the reputation of Autonomy’s management occurred.

London is known as the world’s libel capital for good reason. Anyone in Autonomy’s management, who is not convicted of fraud to do with this transaction, has a strong case for damages and the only real question is how much HP has to pay. When the lack of interest from the FBI and the SFO becomes official, the lawyers and their clients will line up at the spigot.

By: tatilsever

tatilsever — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 14:30:12 +0000

True, I am not familiar with UK laws. Didn’t HP executives make their allegations in the US though? Why would the jurisdiction be in the UK?

By: Tim Nash

Tim Nash — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 08:06:02 +0000

It seems you are applying US law to a UK action for damages.

By: Tatilsever

Tatilsever — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 23:32:46 +0000

For slander, not only the allegations need to be false, but Autonomy guys will need to prove actual malice on the part of HP. Sincerely believing an aggressive scheme to be illegal despite law enforcement refusing to indict is not enough for a lawsuit to succeed. Unless there is a paper trail that has HP executives deciding to making these allegations while they tell each other “of course these are not illegal, but we gotta keep up appearances” or some such, I doubt the lawsuit would go anywhere. Of course, HP executives may have other secrets to keep out of the discovery phase and may chose to settle it as a nuisance suit.

By: windsorr

windsorr — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 08:56:37 +0000

I bet they didn’t.

By: Tim Nash

Tim Nash — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 08:49:26 +0000

It will be interesting to see how much HP has to pay out for damage to the reputation of the former Autonomy management. I suspect that the HP Board didn’t allow for both the FBI and SFO declining to press charges and a subsequent action in the UK.