Autonomy's Mike Lynch Has Hired A Famous Corporate Corruption Lawyer To Defend Him
Weingarten is known as the lawyer that defended ex-WorldCom Chairman Bernard Ebbers. Ebbers still went to jail. Weingarten also defended former Enron accounting officer Richard Causey. He went to jail, too.
More recently, Weingarten defended Goldman Sachs' CEO Lloyd Blankfein when the Justice Department investigated the bank after the 2007-2009 financial industry collapse.
HP has accused Lynch and other Autonomy execs of "improper accounting" to the tune of $5 billion. That $5 billion was part of the $8.8 billion write-down HP took on its $11.1 billion acquisition of Autonomy.
Lynch says he is innocent and blames HP for mismanaging Autonomy after it was acquired. HP's board members are feeling the pain, too. They are trying to fend off a shareholder insurrection that could see two or more of them voted off the board at the annual meeting later this month.
There are now several investigations going on in the U.S. and U.K. into HP's accusations, including the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.K.’s Financial Reporting Council, and the U.K. Serious Fraud Office (SFO).
The SFO is in a pickle about its investigation, though, Reuters reports It happens to be an Autonomy customer and may have to bow out due to conflict-of-interest.
In the meantime, it seems to be business as usual for Lynch. He's scheduled to speak the Royal Academy of Engineering summit in London tomorrow in a panel about technology and growth.