Hewlett-Packard, and shareholders to reach an agreement in the trial of the case reach the autonomy

The signs on the premises of the brand HP at the corner of Mill Street and Hanover Street page at HP headquarters in Palo Alto, California, Friday, 19. August 2011. (Jim Gensheimer / Mercury News) (Jim Gensheimer)

sjohnson@mercurynews.com

PALO ALTO - In a victory for Hewlett-Packard announced the technology giant said Monday that it is the preliminary conclusion of an agreement in a federal trial in shareholder unhappy purchase of British software company Autonomy, which has reached acquitted of irregularities HP executives.

Under the agreement - which must be approved by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco - Lawyers for shareholders of HP in the search for legal action against the former CEO Michael Lynch and autonomy Shushovan Hussain, former CFO of autonomy. All claims against HP employees would be laid off. However, the proposed rules will not affect other shareholder lawsuits against HP, which is pending in federal court.

HP has been widely used to ignore red flags when it paid $ 11 billion in 2011 criticized for autonomy. During the years before analysts and other questions about the company and HP software in November 2012 raised written to lower the value the autonomy of 8.8 billion dollars.

This led some of its shareholders to file a complaint, saying that the leaders of the Palo Alto company misrepresented, as they did due diligence on autonomy, exaggerated the importance of technology and public Autonomy Autonomy recognize problems delayed months to learn from them.

Claimed in his defense, HP, that he will be misled as to the value of the British company because of "lack of accounting irregularities, misrepresentation and disclosure" by the leaders of autonomy. U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Serious Fraud Office in the UK, the allegations of HP. In addition, researchers have made to the Air Force similar allegations against officials of autonomy, try to avoid doing business with the military.

"From 2007-2011," said the former Air Force "to continue the executive autonomy in many of the business practices involved analysts, investors and potential buyers, who believe that autonomy and could cheat and generate revenues and margins, which ultimately could not support because these practices. "

Michael Lynch, former CEO of Autonomy, who was released by Hewlett-Packard in 2012, could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday. But he has repeatedly denied the allegations and said that HP claims from a lack of understanding of the companies domiciled abroad used accounting method.

On Friday shows the following that a new settlement in the shareholders demand was immanent, a representative of Lynch and his management team, said: "We continue to reject the claims of HP, and note that in recent months number of reports have emerged to try (HP CEO) Meg Whitman has deceived its shareholders. expect that this issue will now go on a smear campaign based on selective disclosure and HP finally give a full explanation. "

Contact Steve Johnson at 408-920-5043. Follow him on Twitter.com / steveatmercnews.