Boston, MA 08/26/2014 (wallstreetpr) – A Federal Judge, yesterday said that he had doubts on the proposed agreement finalized between Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) and plaintiff shareholders for the purpose of settling lawsuit involving HP’s messed up acquisition of AUTONOMY CORP PLC ORD (OTCMKTS:AUTNF). The U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco rejected the fee of several million dollars which was offered by the attorneys of shareholders in order to recoup the settlement. In this context, in fact, Judge Charles Breyer said, “That’s out.”
Further Investigations Underway
Judge Charles Breyer said that for approving rest of that deal, further investigations and inquiries would have to be carried out. He said that there will have to be investigations into finding out whether dismissal of claims against HP officers was in favour of shareholders or not. The dismissed Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) officers also included its CEO, Meg Whitman.
Background of the Case
In November 2012, Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) had announced an amount worth $8.8 billion as write down, just one year after acquisition AUTONOMY CORP PLC ORD (OTCMKTS:AUTNF). Also, it associated over $5 billion with the inflated financials as well as fraud by the executives of Autonomy. In the meanwhile, Autonomy had rejected all kinds of accusations.
However, in June 2014, the settlement was reached and as per its terms, the attorneys agreed that they would dismiss all claims against the present or former HP executives and in return, HP had agreed that it would work together with the shareholder attorneys in order to attract claims against Autonomy executives who served earlier and this also included its CEO, Michael Lynch.
However, in the court yesterday, the attorney of company, Marc Wolinsky unveiled that HP also wanted to file a lawsuit against Deloitte & Touche LLP’s British unit on the grounds of its participation in auditing activities of Autonomy.
In response to HP’s attorney’s disclosure in the court, Deloitte & Touche LLP said, “Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ)’s claim would be utterly without merit and we will defend ourselves strongly against it.”
