British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who founded the data analytics software company Autonomy, was acquitted Thursday in a US federal court on 15 fraud charges. He was accused of illegally inflating revenue before selling Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $11B.
Government prosecutors alleged that under Lynch's leadership, Autonomy, which was advertised as a software company, also hid sales of hardware, arguing the company "paid customers to buy software" to fraudulently boost revenue by millions.