HP has announced that the Department of Justice has opened a fraud investigation relating to Autonomy — the company that HP bought for $US11 billion then ended up costing a further $US9 billion.
When news first surfaced of the massive loss owing to Autonomy, things definitely didn’t feel right: at best it was a massive accounting blunder, at worst a weighty piece of organised fraud. Senior members at HP flatly denied any wrong doing, of course, as did Autonomy.
But then there were rumours that the FBI was looking into the allegations by HP of accounting improprieties at Autonomy. Now, reports Bloomberg, HP has formally acknolweged that the Department of Justice has lunched a full-on fraud probe.
Sadly, the regulatory filing in which HP announced the news contains little more than the mention of the probe’s existence, so we’ll have to wait until we hear any juicy details. What is clear, however, is that US officials are taking the claim really rather seriously. [Bloomberg]