[ID1452319]

The books weren't accurate though.

Autonomy sold a lot of hardware and booked it as sales, but hide the costs as marketing.

The also signed deals with resellers and recorded it as sales, but without actually selling software to the end customer.

This made their proprietary software look far more valuable than it really was.

That's why the CFO spent five years in prison for fraud [1] and Lynch lost a civil suit in the UK [2].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/may/13/ex-autonomy...

[2] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Autonomy...