Autonomy Accounts

Information from the former management team of Autonomy plc.

UK Proceedings

On 30 March 2015, HP filed a claim against Dr Lynch for allegedly engaging in improper transactions and accounting practices. Dr Lynch, in turn, issued a counterclaim against HP related to the significant reputational damage he has suffered following his departure from Autonomy.

The trial commenced on 25 March 2019 in London’s High Court and concluded on 15 January 2020.

Summary of High Court proceedings

In March 2020, Bloomberg journalist Jonathan Browning summarised the High Court proceedings in an in-depth article that details evidence heard over the course of the 10 month trial.

Key statistics from the trial

Length of trial93 days over 10 months
Number of witnesses58
Length of MRL’s questioning22 days in the witness box over six weeks — the longest cross-examination of the last 25 years (and one of the longest ever in British legal history)
Length of Opening Submissions (total for all parties)1,067 pages
Length of Closing Submissions (total for all parties)4,494 pages
Number of documents in the corpus11.3 million
Number of lawyers30+
Number of barristers14, of which 4 are leading QCs
Costs (estimated)£40+ million