LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Former Autonomy chief financial officer Sushovan Hussain has been convicted of fraud in the US, marking the first judgement against the firm as part of a long-running legal battle between it and tech giant Hewlett Packard.
Hussain, a British citizen, was found guilty of artificially inflating the UK software firm's financial position before it was sold to HP. His lawyers have said they will appeal.

Prosecutors claimed that as far back as 2009, senior managers at Autonomy had attempted to inflate its share price, making it look more appealing to potential bidders by artificially raising the number of transactions on its books.

When HP acquired Autonomy in 2011 at a cost of £7.1bn ($10.7bn), boosting Hussain's personal wealth by $7.7m, according to court documents, the US firm claimed to have uncovered accounting irregularities and a year later was forced to write off $8.8bn of the British software firm's value.

Autonomy founder and chief executive Mike Lynch denied HP's allegations, claiming the US company was simply making accusations to distract from its own poor management and performance.

Lynch, also British, and Hussain are also facing a civil case from HP for damages.

Hussain was found guilty on all 16 charges, in what was referred to as an "unsustainable Ponzi scheme" during his decade-long tenure as the firm's finance manager and could face a maximum penalty of 20 years behind bars and a fine of $0.25m, plus restitution, for each charge.

Sentencing has been set to take place on Friday.

"As we have consistently maintained, Mr Hussain engaged in outright fraud and deliberately misled the market about non-existent sales through a series of calculated sham transactions," HP said.

"That Mr Hussain attempted to depict the fraud as nothing more than a misunderstanding of international accounting rules was, and still remains, patently ridiculous - and the jury has now held him accountable for his role in defrauding HP," the company added.

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