The former finance chief of software firm Autonomy has been banned as an accountant in the UK – a month after its founder was cleared of fraud by a US jury.
Sushovan Hussain has already been suspended from the profession and will be barred until at least November 2038, said the Financial Reporting Council, the auditing watchdog.
It is the latest fallout from the prolonged legal battle over the £7billion sale of Autonomy to America’s.
Ban: Former Autonomy finance boss Sushovan Hussain will be barred for acting as an accountant in the UK until at least November 2038
Hussain was convicted of fraud in the US and served a five-year jail sentence as well as facing multi-million dollar fines.
Last month, Autonomy founder Mike Lynch was cleared of fraud in San Francisco. The sale of the company, once Britain’s biggest software group and a member of the FTSE 100 index, was one of the biggest UK tech deals at the time but turned sour after HP wrote down most of the value within a year.
Prosecutors said Lynch tried to inflate Autonomy’s revenue figures. But Lynch said he entrusted money matters and certain accounting decisions to Hussain.
The watchdog said of its ban on Hussain: ‘The long period of exclusion reflects the seriousness of the misconduct as evidenced by the fraud offences under the US criminal conviction.’
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