Investors file class action against HP

investors file class action against hp

A class action has been filed against HP after investors claim the firm violated federal securities law, following its acquisitions of Autonomy and EDS.

The case put forward at the Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco said HP “concealed” the fact it had bought Autonomy “based on financial statements that could not be relied upon,” and covered up “negative business trends” affecting the profits associated with its services business, incorporating the EDS asset.

The filing comes a week after HP wrote down the value of Autonomy by $8.8bn; just one year after its $10.2bn purchase price was paid out. A statement from HP claimed former members of Autonomy’s management team had used “accounting improprieties, misrepresentations and disclosure failures” to inflate its figures, leading to a much higher selling price than the software firm was worth.

Mike Lynch, founder and former CEO of Autonomy, has denied the accusations but HP has forwarded its complaints to both the UK’s Serious Fraud Office and US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for criminal and civil investigation.

HP was also forced to writedown the value of services firm EDS by $8bn this summer, which it bought in August 2008 for $13bn.

Investors believe HP traded on “artificially inflated prices” between 19 August 2011 – three days before it announced the EDS writedown – and 20 November 2012 – the day of the Autonomy writedown – and are claiming damages for all purchasers of HP stock in that time.

The only investor named so far on the filing is Allan J. Nicolow, but the defendants are named as HP, former CEO Leo Apotheker, current head of the company Meg Whitman, current CFO Cathie Lesjak and former chief accounting officer Jim Murrin.

Computer Weekly contacted HP for comment but a spokeswoman said the firm didn’t have an official statement at this time.

The deadline for investors to join the class action is 25 January 2013 and they are being represented by Robbins, Geller, Rudman and Dowd LLP.

Two Texas HIEs join forces, enable inter-network exchange

Health information exchange (HIE) continues to move forward in the Lone Star State. Two of Texas’s 12 regional health information networks, Healthcare Access San Antonio (HASA) and Austin-based Integrated Care Collaboration (ICC), have announced that they are the first in the state to establish the exchange of patient health information between their HIEs.
Through the connection and this inter-network exchange, physicians using the HIEs are able to reach providers in 89 counties in Central, South, and East Texas. The ability of HASA and ICC to facilitate inter-HIE exchange is the end result of collaboration between their respective HIE vendors, Medicity and Centex System Support Services and their use of Direct exchange, the platform and standards for exchange established by the Direct Project with significant guidance by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC).
Physicians often are limited to exchanging information within the boundaries of the HIE in which they participate. Physicians in the HASA and ICC networks – covering 89 counties in Central, South and East Texas – can now communicate conveniently about their patients’ care regardless of these boundaries. The ability to share patient information across HIEs helps physicians coordinate care for their patients and make more informed clinical decisions.
Not only are participating providers able to send secure messages to each other, but they are also able to exchange patient summary documents. HASA intends to use the new inter-HIE connectivity to inform analytics projects aimed at quality improvements as well as to support initiatives focusing on population health management. Additionally, the experience should serve as a means to connect HIEs and federal agencies in the future.

The Benefits of Inter-Network Exchange

The partnership between HASA and ICC is the latest health IT development in Texas that involves HIE. Last week, the University of Texas at Austin announced the opening of its HIE laboratory wherein participants in its 9-week certificate program would have the ability to simulate and test HIE using real software provided by two major HIE vendors, Orion Health and Informatics Corporation of America (ICA), and several EHR developers.  “We’re trying to stay out in front,” UT Austin’s Dr. Leanne Field told EHRintelligence.com, “And our teaching and our hands-on experiences by design will help students be prepared for the latest technology that they may see in the workplace.”
The news of the connection between HASA and ICC confirms Texas’s place in moving HIE forward in advance of Stage 2 Meaningful Use, which is set to begin in 2014 for eligible professionals and hospitals in the EHR Incentive Programs.