British tech tycoon branded ‘thoroughly unreliable witness’

As £4bn Autonomy fraud trial enters final stages...

Mike Lynch was accused of telling ‘lie after lie’ in court yesterday as the £4bn Autonomy fraud trial neared a dramatic conclusion.

The High Court has been told the 54-year-old tycoon cooked his tech company’s books before it was sold to Hewlett Packard (HP) for £9bn eight years ago.

Lynch ( pictured), whose £470m fortune is at stake, has been in court most days of the two-month trial and underwent what is thought to have been one of the longest cross-examinations ever.

He denies wrongdoing and claims HP’s mismanagement of Autonomy was to blame for a write-down of most of the firm’s value just a year after the takeover.

But in their closing arguments yesterday, lawyers for HP enterprises launched an excoriating attack on the father-oftwo’s credibility and accused him of being a serial liar. Laurence Rabinowitz QC, acting for HPe, urged judge Mr Justice Hildyard to disregard most of Lynch’s evidence because it was ‘flatly inconsistent’ and contained ‘obvious’ falsehoods.

‘Dr Lynch was a thoroughly unreliable witness, who was willing to lie to the court whenever this was necessary,’ Rabinowitz told the court.

‘it is not just one lie but a whole series, one after another.’

Rabinowitz claimed Lynch had repeatedly changed his story or used ‘diversionary tactics’ when he was challenged to explain apparent contradictions in his evidence. in one example during four weeks of cross-examination, the essex-born entrepreneur told the court that Brent Hogenson, an Autonomy employee in the US, had phoned him during June 2010 to warn of alleged fraud at the company and implicated finance chief Sushovan Hussain and US boss Christopher egan.

But an email from the time showed that when Lynch contacted a non-executive director about the concerns, he instead claimed Hogenson had refused to name anyone involved. A transcript of the phone call, which had been recorded, showed Hogenson actually agreed to refrain from ‘ naming names’ because Lynch advised him not to, Rabinowitz said.

When asked about this in court, Lynch said there had been another, unrecorded phone call in which Hogenson had named Hussain and egan. He also claimed he had spoken to the non- executive director on the phone before emailing him and disclosed names at that point, but kept them from his written message to prevent leaks.

Rabinowitz told Mr Justice Hildyard this was an ‘obvious lie’. He added: ‘Your lordship cannot trust anything Dr Lynch says.’

HPe, which is seeking damages worth around £ 4bn, accuses Lynch of overseeing efforts to artificially inflate Autonomy’s revenues to make it appear more valuable than it really was.

Lynch has dismissed the allegations as a ‘manufactured claim’ and a ‘ witch hunt’ and has launched a counter-suit for nearly £40m in damages.

His lawyers had expected to present their final riposte in January, with a judgment expected in the spring. But the judge yesterday poured cold water on those hopes, saying the evidence was so complex – with closing arguments alone running to more than 4,000 pages – that it was likely that both sides could be called back to court in February and March to explain themselves further.

Hussain, 55, is also accused of fraud. He has not appeared at this trial after being convicted of wire fraud in the US last year and jailed for five years. He has appealed against the ruling.