9th Circuit affirms former Autonomy executive’s fraud convictions

Former Autonomy Corp. chief financial officer Sushovan Hussain's convictions on wire fraud and securities fraud for approving inflated revenue numbers before and after the company's acquisition by Hewlett-Packard Inc. was affirmed Wednesday by a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel.

Hussain's attorney, Alexandra A.E. Shapiro of Shapiro Arato Bach LLP, argued the conviction of a British citizen was "impermissible extraterritorial application of United States law to foreign conduct," according to the ruling.

But 9th Circuit Judge Daniel A. Bress, an appointee of President Donald Trump writing for the panel, rejected the argument because Hussain used domestic wires to perpetrate wire fraud.

He also concluded there was enough evidence to support the securities fraud conviction because Hussain approved "false and misleading financial information in an HP press release distributed to the investing public reflected a fraudulent scheme." U.S. v. Hussain, 2020 DJDAR 9382 (9th Cir., filed Aug. 26, 2020).

For more than two years prior to Autonomy's 2011 acquisition by HP, prosecutors said Hussain used backdated contracts and channel stuffing to make it look as if the company was growing when it actually wasn't, inflating revenues by tens of millions of dollars.

He was convicted in April 2018 of one count of conspiracy, 14 counts of wire fraud and one count of securities fraud after a trial before U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer in San Francisco. The judge sentenced him to five years in prison in May 2019.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert S. Leach defended the guilty verdicts on appeal. Neither he nor the Northern District U.S. attorney's office responded to requests for comment Wednesday.

Shapiro also could not be reached.

-- Craig Anderson