Autonomy's one-time US sales chief can't remember if he took part in grand jury hearing

Autonomy's former US head of sales testified to London's High Court how he took part in a secret US grand jury legal hearing against British software firm Autonomy's chief financial officer. Not only that, but Christopher "Stouffer" Egan also claimed he "can't remember" whether or not he took part in a second grand jury …

[Anonymous Coward]

Clarifications on the grand jury system...

The U.S. grand jury system is not a court. It is an empanelled jury of citizens that considers the prosecution's available case and then decides if there is enough evidence to issue an indictment/go to court for a criminal trial where another jury might render a verdict and punishment could be handed down. The reason grand jury records are private is because it is an investigatory step, where guilt-by-association could come into play if the parties being investigated were announced and a cloud placed over their reputations even if the grand jury ultimately makes the decision that the evidence is not sufficient to warrant an indictment.

[sabroni]

Re: The reason grand jury records are private is because it is an investigatory step

That might be the reason they're private, doesn't make the coaching look any less dodgy.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Clarifications on the grand jury system...

The US and Liberia are the only common law jurisdictions to use it. The rest of us have replaced the closed door system with an open court with a judicial figure of some nature in charge (AFAICR it was magistrates in NI). Depending on the case reporting restrictions might be in place but members of the public can see what's happening and defendants not only know about the proceedings but can be represented.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Clarifications on the grand jury system...

In practice, the grand jury system is mostly an opportunity for the state to see how its evidence and witnesses look in court. Federal grand juries almost never fail to return an indictment.

I'm referring to accusatory grand juries, of course, as were you. There are also investigatory grand juries, which are a different kettle of fish. Often a very slowly cooking kettle of fish, since an investigatory grand jury may serve for as long as 18 months, and then may be replaced by another grand jury to continue the investigation.

Ken White wrote a post or two on popehat about the whole thing a while back.

[Aladdin Sane]

IANAL, but HPE really aren't looking good here, neither is the US legal system.

[chivo243]

Oh, darling, you don't get it.. They look fantastic to each other, so much so they're sharing the same bed. Help me do it right baby! Oh, ah, that's it, do it again... in front of the court!

[Aladdin Sane]

Somebody's going to get screwed anyway.

[John H Woods]

British Judges ...

... can be absolutely brilliant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: British Judges ...

Remember David Bris who after the Apple/Samsung rounded corners case had dragged on for ages in the US, dismissed it in the UK in a couple of sentences?

It's very hard to buy a British judge.

[Nick Kew]

Re: British Judges ...

It's very hard to buy a British judge.

How quaintly naïve.

It's all about getting the Right Judge. Which in turn means getting the Right Lawyers, to fix it up for you.

Harder if the other side is also sufficiently well-lawyered, which I guess must be what you meant.

[Peter2]

Re: British Judges ...

In Britain, Lawyers are unqualified secretarial types and aren't allowed to appear in court. Solicitors are allowed to appear in court, but Solicitors or Barristers still don't get any say as to which Judge deals with their case unless there is a direct conflict of interest in the case such as the Judge being on the board/owning shares in the company in question, however that is rare, and the Judge would recuse themselves at the point the Judge was picked before it got to court in such a case.

It's rather rare for anybody to try and change the Judge, simply because it always fails unless there is a geniune reason, which leaves the people who tried pulling a fast one with an awkward situation where they still have the Judge they tried to replace dealing with the case, who is likely to have very little patience with any other underhanded tricks that somebody might try to pull.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: British Judges ...

"It's rather rare for anybody to try and change the Judge"

I've seen it attempted in a criminal case by getting an adjournment when the judge was a known hard sentencer. They got the case put off. Whilst on bail for a burglary the lad got mixed up in a far more serious case. I don't know what he got in the end but it would have been a lot more years than if he'd pleaded guilty to the burglary.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: British Judges ...

Interesting down vote there. I couldn't, at this distance of time tell you the date or the defendant's name. I could, however, tell you the name of the original judge, the court where the trial was due to have been held, the nature of the premises burgled (OK, I'll give you that - it was a butcher's shop), the nature of the more serious offence, where it happened and that, AFAICR, the trial for that was in No2 Court, Crumlin Rd. Do you know better?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: British Judges ...

Crumlin Road is in Northern Ireland, not Britain where we have either England & Wales or Scottish law. I was actually careful in my original post - the only comments I have ever heard from NI people on the NI legal system have been, to say the least, uncomplimentary.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: British Judges ...

> in Northern Ireland, not Britain

*grabs popcorn*

[TheVogon]

Re: British Judges ...

"It's all about getting the Right Judge. Which in turn means getting the Right Lawyers, to fix it up for you.

Harder if the other side is also sufficiently well-lawyered, which I guess must be what you meant."

That's how it works in the colonies, not in Great Britain. Whilst you can certainly Lawyer-up in the UK, being rich doesn't otherwise influence the judicial process. Hence why lots of say Russian and other international business disputes are heard in GB.

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: British Judges ...

Hasn't UK legal aid been hollowed out by our oh-so lovely Tories?

[amanfromMars 1]

Foreign territory's tele-prompter fail outs dodgy shenanigans. Nukes London High Court proceedings?

Regarding those last two paragraphs ..... in another court, any similar actions would result in a charge of being in contempt of court.

Or is that a misconception/misperception?

[Velv]

I'm guessing there's going to be a lot of fat Register readers by the end of Summer given the amount of popcorn being consumed...

[IT's getting kinda boring]

Good point....

Just finished one bag - off out to buy another.

[BebopWeBop]

Re: Good point....

Maybe a use for one of those Amazon 'buy this item' buttons (attach it to your remote control)? OK, only kidding, I wouldn't have any Amazon electronics on my land either.

[Roland6]

Re: Good point....

>Just finished one bag - off out to buy another.

Well if going out to buy another involves "walking the dog" then a nice balance of reward and exercise.

[Nick Kew]

Stereotypes

No popcorn here. Fat enough already.

Do you think this can rival SCO for keeping geekdom hooked? To be honest, I'd be surprised: that was so much more important.

[Pascal Monett]

It was certainly important, but after a decade it got thoroughly boring.

[Peter2]

And everybody involved knew dammed well that they didn't have a case.

This is rather more ambigious.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Stereotypes

I doubt it will ever get to the entertainment value of Judge Wright's handling of Prenda Law. I rather miss that one now it's finally over.

[TheVogon]

Re: Stereotypes

"I doubt it will ever get to the entertainment value of Judge Wright's handling of Prenda Law"

Oh it gets way better over here. Try for starters "I refer you to the answer given in the case of Arkell vs Pressdram."

[stiine]

Re: Stereotypes

Or Steele & Hansmeier and their friends at Prenda Law?

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

Did Egan just basically admit to perjuring himself on behalf of US prosecutors? Or am I reading too much into that?

(I'm not trying to make a joke here, I'm genuinely confused and hoping someone who understands this a bit better can enlighten me)

[anothercynic]

If he's American, he can do whatever he likes, clearly... as long as he never flies to London, or through London to Europe. Somehow I don't think the UK will ever demand an extradition on the basis of a contempt of court charge. ;-)

[Claverhouse]

Or we could do a straight swap: 'You people drop your made-up cases against Julian, we'll not prosecute this American'.

[GrapeBunch]

Antonyoyo

Flagrant contempt of court was shown by the US lawyer with Egan. He's the one who stopped the proceedings. He did not ask permission. Slightly less flagrant would have been to cut the transmission without warning, click.

US prosecutors seem to have used Pavlovian conditioning on Egan. I thought that only happened in police procedural TV shows, with the young cop saying "you can't do that", and the old wizened cop replying "just watch me", "this is how you get a confession" or making his reply a slap on the suspect's person, whilst keeping shtum. Whatever. The admissibility of Pavlovian conditioning (you could call it a form of torture) does not reflect any virtue upon the USA legal system. "Countrymen, I come to praise it." [exit stage left].

[Flak]

Who needs a soap opera...

...when this trial delivers it all - twists, turns, hilarity - and high stakes! Episode after episode.

Thank you for the digest - it would be much harder to get this kind of detail otherwise.

[FozzyBear]

Re: Who needs a soap opera...

I wonder what the season one cliff hanger is going to be ?

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: Who needs a soap opera...

IF HPE get their way, it'll be a cliff hanging.

[Peter2]

** Halfway through Egan's evidence, one of the attorneys sitting with him, on the US end of the video link, declared that there had been a problem and asked the High Court, "Can we take a break please?"

The court – including the judge – remained dead silent as people on screen began fiddling with the video link from Egan's end. The witness himself got up and wandered off. More techies appeared on screen, one announcing: "I'm sorry, this is being looked at right now." Someone then disconnected the US end of the link, blanking the screens in the courtroom.

"I found the witness most interesting," muttered Mr Justice Hildyard, pointedly studying his fingertips as his courtroom ground to a halt with the witness on the stand walking away without the judge's permission or even involvement. A few lawyers laughed nervously.

So, the American lawyers declared that there was a technical problem with what appears to have been a perfectly working bit of equipment to prematurely terminate questioning from a case in the High Court because the questioning was revealing that witnesses had been coached as to the correct answers to questions they had to give. If that one is pulled much then it's going to mean the end of attendance via video links in court, especially if the witness is coached on how he answers before he gets to give evidence again.

Isin't witness tampering a crime in America?

[Jellied Eel]

That damn book again.

Isin't witness tampering a crime in America?

Depends who's witness it is I guess.. But previously we heard that Autonomy used 'every trick in the book' to pad it's sales. And their US CEO.. I mean head of sales knew absolutely nothing about this. I guess pointed questions about regional revenue reporting and recognition might be why some witnesses are reluctant to appear in our jurisdiction.

(Oh, and books.. I found an old book called 'Accounting for Growth', published pre-.Com and explaining a lot of these tricks that still appear today. But let's not spoil an Uber-sized valuation.

[david 12]

The obvious implication is that they had problems with their view of the British court. Being able to see/hear the judge/court/tribunal is actually a very import factor in the behaviour of witnesses, and the tribunal would get a dangerously distorted view of the behaviour of the witness if the back channel did not work correctly.

[Doctor Syntax]

It's a very interesting comparison between the two legal systems, especially as regards the operation of the grand jury. On this side of the pond we got rid of them some time ago in favour of preliminary hearings, usually, as far as I can remember, in front of a magistrate and in open court. I wonder what impression the US system is making on the judge.

[bazza]

Not a very good one. Far be it for me to presume the goings on in our Judge's internal deliberations, but I don't think he's forming a good impression of the prosecution case.

[DavCrav]

"I don't think he's forming a good impression of the prosecution case."

I think he might be forming the opinion that they don't have one. This is going to make extradition proceedings for Lynch quite difficult, because if, as I suspect, this gets thrown out with some harsh words about the US 'evidence', this will be brought up at his extradition hearing.

[BebopWeBop]

Yup, 1933. There's an amusing article here - https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-12-04/england-abolished-grand-juries-decades-ago-because-they-didnt-work - summary in the title. Their structure was considered to be handing an open goal to the prosecution (a bit like plea bargaining USA)

[gazthejourno]

Re: Re: Picture. Are they auctioning something off?

US case heavily referenced during this hearing involved gavels. Nice try but your pedantry fails you.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Picture. Are they auctioning something off?

But the judge is in the UK.

Maybe they used a gavel to give the video-link kit percussive maintenance. But would that have been before or after it went faulty?

[Aqua Marina]

This going to end up where simultaneously, The defendants are found to be the greatest criminal masterminds of all time in the US, whilst over in the UK HP is found to be the IT equivalent of the Keystone Cops.

I'd go out on a limb here and say that at all costs, the US courts will always ensure that blame for anything always resides with foreigners.

[Anonymous Coward]

“whilst over in the UK HP is found to be the IT equivalent of the Keystone Cops.”

No chance - once Lynch’s legal team tire of shooting fish in a barrel, I suspect they may speed up proceedings by showing pictures of an arse and an elbow and only questioning those that correctly identify each item.

And no, “Leo” is not considered a correct answer.

Nor is “my reflection” Mr Apotheker.

[Anonymous Coward]

One law for them, another for US business

"Earlier in the day Egan had denied, in the High Court, that HPE had held off from suing him over the Autonomy writedown in order to secure damning testimony to bring down Lynch and Hussain, strongly denying Miles' assertion that "the way to protect yourself is to provide the prosecution with the evidence they want, to blame Mr Hussain and now to blame Dr Lynch."

US business law has always sided with either the US business in multinational cases or the US business with the most money in domestic cases, we wouldn't want to re-write precedent now...

[Paul Johnson 1]

Caught between two legal systems?

Obviously this is speculation, but its quite possible that the second Grand Jury (the "I don't recall" one) is still sealed, so he can't tell anyone about it under US law. However when on the witness stand in the UK he was required to answer all questions fully and honestly. By claiming forgetfulness he could avoid breaking US law. If he was lying about his lack of memory then of course that would be perjury, but in the absence of mind-reading it could not be proved.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Caught between two legal systems?

It's even stranger than that since he was "on the stand" in the UK only by video link so not actually within the courts jurisdiction. I'm not even sure if his oath had any validity under UK law. (did he even swear an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?)

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Caught between two legal systems?

"the whole truth"

Or as much of it as he can remember.

This element of the oath always worried me. As a witness one can only respond to the questions asked. If neither asks for a relevant fact then the fact might not get into the evidence and if a witness were attempt to volunteer it the counsel who the fact doesn't favour might object.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Caught between two legal systems?

"By claiming forgetfulness he could avoid breaking US law."

The judge might take his memory problems into account when deciding how much weight his evidence carries.

[Schultz]

Lying about his lack of memory....

He got his answers mixed up. You can pretend to not remember some details from the distant past, but not remembering your recent summons to a grand jury proceedings (maybe still ongoing) is not credible unless you go the full mental breakdown route.

He should have stated that he cannot comment on grand jury proceedings due to his legal obligations in the US. He then was supposed to forget all those damning details that imperiled the HP case. You can almost picture the attorneys making the 'cut' signs as they realized he started to perjure himself. They didn't coach him very well. Maybe there is a limit on how much you can teach a witness by asking him questions over and over.

It looks like HP started with a weak case and relies on pressuring US witnesses into shoring up their case, i.e. threatening those witnesses with legal action unless they support the HP case.

[Boris the Cockroach]

Its strange

that the US case is a criminal one, yet over this side of the pond its a civil case.......

I wonder, if it was a british company alledgedly defrauded by a smaller US one that it bought, that the positions would be reversed..

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume that you mean...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Signal_and_Control

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

Re: Its strange

I think it's twofold, firstly I believe that it is because the US legal system is utterly corrupt. Secondly, and more importantly it's because HP have made themselves look like complete arses in plain sight of their peers and the wider global IT community, and they are now crying to (i.e. paying) the US Government to help them make a case - any case... anything... anything at all.

A case that I would hazard they themselves know is flaky at best due to their own incompetence, but that they now can't let go of due to their own arrogance and idiocy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear HPE

You bought a nice fat pig in a poke, and it turned out to be a undernourished feline. I am sure there are some parables about that. Wipe your tears, suck it up, and... learn.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Dear HPE

From previous evidence it didn't appear to have been in a poke, they didn't take time to look at it because they were in such a hurry to buy.

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: pig in a poke

Did they buy it in the heat of the moment?

Mine's the one with the holy oil.

[Kubla Cant]

Re: Dear HPE

This is a bit depressing, actually. The company formerly known as Hewlett-Packard is massive, it was the world's leading PC manufacturer from 2007-2013, it's outlived or engulfed many rivals. Yet it turns out to be farcically incompetent. Where's the justice in that?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Dear HPE

It was also arguably the world's leading electronic instrument manufacturer way before that. Its subsequent history is a drastic example of what greed for more can do to a well-established, well-regarded blue-chip company.

[FozzyBear]

What the hell

He paid $923,000 in "disgorgements" to American prosecutors and secured a deferred prosecution agreement in respect of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Now reading this, he basically paid off the prosecutors so they wouldn't proceed with fraud charges. ( correct me if I'm wrong). How the f&^k can you have faith in a justice system that allows the criminal to literally pay blood money to escape punishment.

American Justice, it truly is the best money can buy. ==> icon as this should make everyone sick

[david 12]

Re: What the hell

Fines and repayments don't normally go to the people employed in the prosecutors office. Unless, as you seem to suggest, that is different in the UK?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: What the hell

FozzyBear's point is a good one. Justice should not only be done, it should be seen to be done. This pay prosecutors to settle arrangement looks more like justice being seen to be bought even if it's the norm in these cases involving corporations.

[StuntMisanthrope]

Pull up your socks and tap your head.

There's two industries, that have been resting on their laurels for the better part of a century. Poor quality data, single points of failure, without qualitative nor quantitative assessment and the results are plain to see. #zeroloss