HPE wants British ex-CFO to testify in UK Autonomy lawsuit before Uncle Sam sentences him HPE wants Sushovan Hussain, convicted ex-CFO of infamous British software company Autonomy, to give evidence in HPE's UK lawsuit against former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch before his own potential US prison sentence. In legal filings seen by The Register, HPE's lawyers said: "There remains uncertainty as to when Mr Hussain's …
To some large extent the value of the US dollar is related to the perceived health of the US economy and the functioning of the Federal government. The latter is currently totally dependent on the sale of US treasury bonds, because they don't raise enough funds in taxation. A lot of bonds are bought by China. The current presidency, and indeed many before it (but especially the current one) has done almost nothing about US deficit spending. Large though the US economy is, there is always a reckoning somewhere down the line. They added another trillion dollars to the debt pile last year, for a total public debt of about USD23trillion. That's about USD80,000 for every man, women and child in the USA.
For it to not be a Ponzi scheme, they'd have to raise that in tax. Whether or not they have to raise that taxation is dependent on China choosing whether or not to keep funding it. I can't see that sum being raised in tax, ever.
There is the question of whether or not China can afford to call in the debt - I reckon the US government is calculating that it can't - but that's got to be an increasingly risky thing.
that's an easy one to solve, just need eternal economic growth.
Why would economic growth not be eternal?
In it's purest sense, growth is things we've dug out of the ground, things we've made with what we dug up, and things we've learned that add value to our lives. There's no specific reason for any or all of those processes to stop, thus economic growth can be considered eternal.
Also sprinkle a nice dose of inflation on top to devalue the debt
Well, yes, that is the only true purpose of inflation. It devalues the money you have thus encouraging you to invest it or otherwise to spend it. It makes the states debt smaller, but also makes positive debt (what you borrowed to invest in growth) smaller thus encouraging more investment and so more growth.
I have a feeling that once you start on the popcorn while watching this one it would be possible to get very, very fat before the farrago ends. HP, or whatever they are called this week/last week did a crap job of evaluating their purchase, (anyone for due diligence?) and are now in boohoo mode. Sorry I am not sad at all.
If the books were cooked correctly, due diligence would not necessarily catch the fraud. There is a certain amount of faith in the integrity of the books presented are accurate. Autonomy would have had an audit trail if they were publicly traded; do not remember if they were.
Is there any danger that by being pressed to testify prior to his own sentencing, Hussain might be induced to be more helpful to the prosecution of Lynch in return for a less onerous sentence? Lynch is presumably regarded as a bigger fish to catch by the prosecution and the US system is reputedly full of "deals". Given that Hussain intends to appeal against sentence (and perhaps also against his conviction as well) this seems unlikely but as he's rather strapped for cash, he might be in a bit of a bind.
Of course whilst this might all be denied by the authorities in question (and it is pure speculation on my part as to whether or not such a tactic could/would be used), it does rather make it difficult for them to show that they remain beyond reproach.
I think you're right. There's could be pressure either from the prosecution or from HPE Lawyers who might promise to soften their stance during the appeal. But rather than him considering a bigger or smaller fish to catch I think that the real issue is that HPE is playing the "more favourable" American legal system against the British one.
Is an "an enraged Hewlett-Packard" going to pursue and prosecute the idiot who agreed on the deal at HP without proper discovery as well ?
Because okay, they cooked the books, but you were too incompetent to see the $8 billion hole you threw yourself into. That is a magnitude of incompetence that is striking in itself.
Spunking such a ridiculous amount of cash on Autonomy when it was obviously over valued, along with other total clusterfucks - Touchpad anyone? - because the guys in charge were total dicks.
HP was run by a succession of idiots who systematically destroyed what was, only a few short years before, one of the best tech companies on the planet.
Hussain was ordered to forfeit more than $7m he had made in personal profits from the sale of Autonomy
So, HP paid about $11bn and Hussain made more than $7m, that's a tiny percentage of the money involved. At this point I would like to know who were the major shareholders and whether there were brokerage fees involved in the deal. I can bet that the people on trial were not the only ones who made a lot of money from the deal.
I’ve always been curious - maybe I missed previous discussions - but I’ve personally never met anyone whose employer/ organisation was a customer. I have even worked for companies who have “one of everything” and they didn’t use it.
Any readers able to tell us anything about it?
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