Hewlett Packard has agreed to pay $100 million to end a proposed securities class action over its $11 billion acquisition of British software company, Autonomy Corp.
The proposed settlement with the shareholders comes after the federal judge for the Northern District of California, Judge Breyer, gave preliminary approval in March to a separate deal that promises corporate governance reforms to settle HP shareholders’ derivative claims over the Autonomy acquisition.
Tuesday’s proposed settlement calls for Judge Breyer to certify a class of investors that bought HP stock between the company’s August 2011 announcement of the Autonomy deal and its November 2012 disclosure of an $8.8 billion write-down. The litigation stems from HP’s acquisition of Autonomy and subsequent $8.8 billion write-down.
The case is In re: HP Securities Litigation, case number 3:12-cv-05980, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.