Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite tales on this weekly e-newsletter.US prosecutors on Monday sought to painting British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch as “a controlling, dominating, intimidating boss” and “the driving pressure behind [a] large fraud”, because the trial over occasions that transfixed Silicon Valley greater than a decade in the past acquired underneath manner in San Francisco.Lynch, the previous chief government of UK software program firm Autonomy, pulled off “an elaborate multi-layered, multiyear fraud” that concerned overstating his firm’s revenues by tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} and main Hewlett-Packard to overpay in a $11.5bn acquisition, stated Adam Reeves, the lead prosecutor.The Autonomy deal, which the prosecution claims concerned the most important fraud in Silicon Valley historical past, was central to HP’s efforts to show itself spherical and reinvent itself as a tech firm with a heavy reliance on software program. As its technique foundered, it laid off greater than 100,000 staff and was ultimately cut up up.Lynch — who has spent years masterminding his defence via a sequence of proceedings, together with a civil fraud case and extradition hearings within the UK — sat impassively at his legal professionals’ desk in a darkish swimsuit and tie and a white shirt throughout opening arguments. He has pleaded not responsible. The trial comes 10 months after he was extradited to the US, forcing him to dwell underneath home arrest and 24-hour surveillance in San Francisco.Lynch, 58, is standing trial alongside Stephen Chamberlain, Autonomy’s former vice-president of finance, on 15 prices of wire fraud and conspiracy that carry doubtlessly prolonged jail sentences. Lynch additionally faces a cost of securities fraud. Autonomy’s chief monetary officer, Sushovan Hussain, was convicted on comparable prices and sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment in 2019.In a gap assertion, Reeves informed jurors that the trial, which is anticipated to final three months, would revolve round complicated accounting strategies that Autonomy used to artificially inflate its income. “There’s numerous jargon round these offers,” Reeves stated. “Don’t fear about that. Preserve your eyes on the {dollars}.” The corporate had backdated gross sales, engaged in round-trip transactions with clients to compensate them for getting its software program, and falsely dressed up lossmaking {hardware} transactions as software program offers, he stated.Reid Weingarten, a lawyer for Lynch, stated the defence’s proof would present the transactions on the coronary heart of the case mirrored the complexity of regular enterprise life. “The place [the prosecution] claimed hearth, you’ll see solely smoke,” he informed the jury. “You’re going to conclude that numerous what you heard at present about accounting fraud was nothing apart from regular enterprise performed by Mike Lynch.”He additionally cautioned jurors to not be distracted by prosecution makes an attempt to make Lynch appear “unlikeable”. The previous Autonomy boss was “a tough charger and demanding”, he stated, however added that these traits had been a part of his effort to do his greatest for the corporate.Reeves, for the prosecution, prompt there can be little documentary proof straight implicating Lynch within the transactions and accounting entries on the centre of the fraud claims. As a substitute, he stated the corporate’s former chief monetary officer had been central in finishing up the fraud. The jury would have the ability to draw “an affordable inference that Hussain’s centrality was precisely how Mike Lynch needed it”, enabling him to train management “with out making a paper path again to him”, he stated.Pointing to the CFO’s shut involvement within the disputed transactions, Lynch’s lawyer stated Hussain “basically taught Mike the majority of what Mike is aware of about accounting”. He added: “Mike by no means, by no means had a motive to not belief” Hussain.Forward of the trial the decide, Charles Breyer, dominated Lynch’s defence couldn’t argue in court docket that he had been made a scapegoat by HP to cowl up its mismanagement of Autonomy after the acquisition. Nevertheless, his lawyer informed the jury that HP was “in dire straits” on the time of the deal and tried, unsuccessfully, to make use of the transaction to distract consideration from its personal issues.