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Before HP Autonomy’s Red Flags

Tuesday November 27 2012

Here is a lengthy front  page WSJ article on the evidence that Autonomy was cooking the books well before the HP purchase. How did HP miss all this?

There is even a parallel with Enron, the CEO of Autonomy claimed to have 500 software engineers working on various projects but the door to that room led to a broom closet. Enron pulled the same stunt claiming all the folks behind  a glass wall were sophisticated commodity traders on the phone doing deals. In reality they were secretaries and such talking to friends on the phone. 

Auditing requires professional skepticism. Oh, did I mention DeLoitte signed off on this deal?

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2 responses to “Before HP Autonomy’s Red Flags”

  1. Alfred Salazar Jr Avatar
    Alfred Salazar Jr

    This is just ridiculous but necessary at the same time. Let me explain: Ridiculous because, the more money these firms make, the higher the risk they think they can get away with; no self morals. Necessary in the sense that, accounting majors (like myself) get to see the repercussions of what greed can do to an individual. DeLoitte knew what was going on. How can you be in the profession of accounting and realize something is wrong or out-of-place, and still sign off on nonsense? I don’t think I would want to know!

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  2. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    Alfred
    Thanks for reading Prof Elam and you are quite right, this is ridiculous, yet again and again we see big firms embroiled in a mess. We take a hard look at this in accounting ethics class.

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