Corporate Crimes: US grand jury indicts former CFO

SAN FRANCISCO: An indictment has been issued by a US grand jury for a former Autonomy executive accused of inflating the British software firm’s financial performance before Hewlett-Packard paid $11 billion for it in 2011. Former Autonomy chief financial officer Sushovan Hussain of Britain was charged with fraud and conspiracy crimes carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The indictment issued in San Francisco federal court on Thursday calls for Hussain to surrender at least $7.7 million he made from his shares in publicly traded Autonomy when it was bought by HP in what turned out to be a disastrous deal. Beginning in October of 2009 or even earlier, Hussain and others engaged in a scheme to inflate Autonomy’s financial performance to earn bonuses, gain prestige, drive up the share price, and get more money from a buyer, according to the indictment.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2016.

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