Mike Lynch, the founder of Autonomy, has hit back at HP allegations that it was lied to during its acquisition of the British banking software outfit.

Earlier this week, HP slammed former members of management at Autonomy, which it acquired last year in a deal worth $12 billion. It accused them of "inflating" the value of the company prior to the takeover as part of a "wilful effort to mislead". This led to a $5 billion charge in its latest quarterly accounts.

A statement issued by HP noted: “HP is extremely disappointed to find that some former members of Autonomy’s management team used accounting improprieties, misrepresentations and disclosure failures to inflate the underlying financial metrics of the company, prior to Autonomy’s acquisition by HP. These efforts appear to have been a wilful effort to mislead investors and potential buyers, and severely impacted HP management’s ability to fairly value Autonomy at the time of the deal. We remain 100 per cent committed to Autonomy and its industry-leading technology.”

Lynch has strongly denied the allegations. “This is a company that has delivered its worst results in years and I’m not going to be HP’s scapegoat for a company that’s in utter disarray,” he told Sky News. “HP came in with about 300 people, crawled over everything and found nothing wrong. And you know why? Because there was nothing wrong. The writedown is due to them destroying value, they have mismanaged Autonomy.”

Meanwhile, Autonomy’s former auditor Deloitte has “categorically denied that it had any knowledge of any accounting improprieties or misrepresentations.” It added: “We conducted our audit work in full compliance with regulation and professional standards.”

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