The Court has found that Hewlett-Packard has “substantially succeeded” in its fraud claims against Mike Lynch and Sushovan Hussain.
The claims arose out of HP’s acquisition of Autonomy, a FTSE 100 software company, in 2011. HP’s case was that it significantly overpaid for Autonomy as a result of the fraudulent distortion by the Defendants, Mike Lynch (Autonomy’s former CEO) and Sushovan Hussain (Autonomy’s former CFO), of Autonomy’s financial performance.
Following a ten-month trial in the High Court – described as the “tech trial of the century” – which concluded in January 2020 (making it one of the longest-running cases ever to be heard in England), on 28 January 2022 Mr Justice Hildyard delivered a summary of his conclusions. He said the following about his findings: “… I have reached clear conclusions in these proceedings on the civil liability of Dr Lynch and Mr Hussain for fraud under FSMA, common law, and the Misrepresentation Act 1967…”. He concluded by saying: “Finally, the legal representation and assistance provided to me in this case have been of the very highest standard. The longer my labours have continued the more I have understood and appreciated theirs and quite how much work has been put into these proceedings…. I wish to express my profound and genuine appreciation to them all for the quality of their work, and in particular the enormous help they have provided to me in what has been for everyone involved an exceptionally onerous case.”
A copy of the summary is available here.
The detailed judgment – setting out more fully Mr Justice Hildyard’s reasons for his conclusions – will become publicly available in due course. Quantum will be determined in a later judgment.
Patrick Goodall QC acted for the Claimants, along with Laurence Rabinowitz QC, Conall Patton QC, Emma Jones, James Fox and Ben Zelenka Martin of One Essex Court and Max Schaefer of Brick Court Chambers. They were instructed by Toby Robinson and Andrew King of Travers Smith.
Paul Casey appeared for Mr Hussain at trial, instructed by Ian Hammond of Simmons & Simmons. Richard Lissack QC and Robin Barclay QC acted for Mr Hussain at an earlier stage in the proceedings.