By Abhirup Roy and Jody Godoy
(Reuters) – Autonomy founder Mike Lynch was acquitted of fraud on Thursday by a jury in San Francisco, a major win for the entrepreneur who has been dogged by legal problems since the disastrous sale of his company to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $11 billion in 2011.
Representatives for Lynch and U.S. prosecutors said Lynch was acquitted on all 15 charges — one count of conspiracy, and 14 counts of wire fraud, each connected to specific transactions or communications.
Former Autonomy finance executive Stephen Chamberlain, who faced the same charges at trial alongside Lynch, was also acquitted on all counts, the Lynch representative said.
The trial where prosecutors said Lynch and Chamberlain schemed to inflate Autonomy’s revenue was the latest chapter in a legal saga stemming from the failed deal.
The Autonomy sale was one of the biggest British tech deals at the time but quickly went sour, with HP writing down Autonomy’s value by $8.8 billion within a year.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York and Abhirup Roy in San Francisco; Editing by Rod Nickel)
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