autonomy was audited by deloitte and it was audited by kpmg, two of the big four accounting firms.y didn't notice anything? really? this sale involved a list of banks and law firms on both sides of the deal that are supposed to be in the best in the business including goldman sachs, citigroup and barclays. plus it is not as if there were no warning signs before the acquisition. oracle had considered buying autonomy for $6 billion and decided that even that was overpriced. whether autonomy did anything wrong will take time to decide but hp's mistake is simply incomprehensible. this is like buying a rolls-royce and then driving it around for a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a these talking points, that the right have, about the "heavy hand of government" ... i want to have that conversation. let's talk about it. really? you're going to lay people off because now the government is going to help you fund your healthcare. really? i want to have those conversations, not to be confrontational, but to understand what the other side is saying, and i'd like to arm our

autonomy was audited by deloitte and it was audited by kpmg, two of the big four accounting firms. they didn't notice anything? really? this sale involved a list of banks and law firms on both sides of the deal that are supposed to be in the best in the business including goldman sachs, citigroup and barclays. plus it is not as if there were no warning signs before the acquisition. oracle had considered buying autonomy for $6 billion and decided that even that was overpriced. whether autonomy did anything wrong will take time to decide but hp's mistake is simply incomprehensible. this is like buying a rolls-royce and then driving it around for a year before you figure out it is a yugo. mix. >>now it's your turn at the only online forum with a direct line to eliot spitzer. >>join the debate now. >> eliot: welcome back. i'm joined by professor reich of u.c. berkeley, former labor secretary under president clinton and author of "beyond outrage." we're going to talk fiscal cliff in a minute. before we get there this hp thing has me going nuts! it is wall street at its worst. they paid

i'm joined again by the partner in charge of kpmg tiffany ras mussen our independent auditor, who youent to you today our fourth year of clean audits for all three enterprises. upon that is a remarkable achievement and i want to particular point out and call out deputy cfo francis lee as well as deputy cfo charles pearl who runs accounting operations. myself along with app take a lot of care. this shows you the last five years of all three enterprises and the most important thing to notice is that it shows clean audit opinions and no material findings over the last four years. so we've continued that trend. >> president torres: on that point, after reading these voluminous audits, one thing was striking to me and that's the assistance program. and i think there were 28 recommendations, as i recall. and those recommendations are being implemented to ensure that people are not taking advantage of the program that don't -- that are not eligible because they are way beyond the low income level. is that correct? >> that is correct. in fact those audit findings as well from the community as

she's giving a pass to lloyd and kpmg, the accounting firm that did the due diligence. the auditor at the time is not held responsible for that. final quote, a willful effort to mislead investors, buyers, and impacted hp's ability to impact atomomy. in april, 2011, oracle said no thank you, way overpriced. they passed on this one. >> interesting. i'm sure we'll hear more about the story. adam, thank you so much. >> yep. >> maybe the largest insider trading scandal ever, more details on the $276 million scheme with charlie next. >> stocks down big heading out to the new york stock exchange selling off listening to ben bernanke here, down 52 points on the dow, and how the dollar is fairing as well headed to break. it is stronger against the euro. we'll be right back. twins. i didn't see them coming. i have obligations. cute obligations, but obligatio. i need to reink the core of my portfolio. what i really need is sleep. introducing the ishares core, building blocks for the heart of your portfolio. find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for t

company like autoly, if will be rumors like this, but they went through working with deloitte and kpmg who hp had hired to talk to deloitte about these issues as well as talking to mike lynch and they ran it to ground and said there's no there there. obviously, we know differently now. >> lynch was ceo of the company until fired by whitman for not reaching targets. might have been a lot harder to reach targets without perhaps some of the revenue recognition creativity that they are alleged to have committed before the company was sold to hp. of course, this has been referred to both s.e.c. and the serious fraud unit of the uk. we shall see what they choose to do as they proceed with their own investigation. >> we shall see init deed. david, stick around, bring in topeka capital market, bryan white, kayla tausche. mike lynch is flatly denying these allegation. >> coming out saying not only did he have nothing do with this but hp for its smart a big grownup company, did its own intensive due diligence here. investors don't know what to make of lynch for his part, he is an interesting cha

it had kpmg. it had barclays. an incredible amount of work was done.king about a massive elephant in the room that wasn't spotted. the reason it wasn't spotted is simple. it wasn't there. there was nothing for the due diligence to find. it was done in their own words meticulously in great detail. then they actually ran the company, including doing all of the books, for the last four quarters. >> so obviously something has gone on here. you're talking about an $8.8 billion write down from hp. what do you think happened? >> i think there's been significant mismanagement of the company. so the company was brought in when there was one strategy from the board, which was to divest hardware and do software. there was then one of these things you get every so often at hewlett-packard and a new ceo comes in. the other divisions are in power. autonomy's not been relevant. wait in which it's managed leaves something like 300 of the key staff leaving, the top of the management team. i was the last of the top management team out in may. you know, it's very hard to

company like autonomy, there will be rumors like this, but they went through working with deloitte and kpmgwho hp hired to talk to deloitte about these issues as well as talking to mike lynch and they ran it to ground and said there's no there there. obviously, we know different now. >> of course, deloitte was the accounting name signed off on autonomy's numbers. mike lynch, dr. michael lynch was one of the founder of the company and running it until he was sum marly dismissed by whitman, because add harder time making the numbers, which he did when they weren't actually autonomy but owned by hp. as for his part, mr. lynch said the former management team of autonomy was shocked to see the statement today, flatly rejects these allegation, they are false it took ten years build autonomy's industry-leading technology. stood see,has been mismanaged, he claimed, since the acquisition was done by hp. for all of that meg whitman says they still like the end product. >> we still like the business. we like the technology. we think it's going to be an important part of hp's -- hp software's growth st

. >> you have kpmg, goldman sachs, deutsch bank, you have all these law firms and lawyers and investment banks who honed in on this deal and took a piece of it. they all got paid and none of them saw it either. so are you going to sue them? that's who companies hire to do this kind of stuff. >> i think they will be sued. we're taking a look at it, as are many other law firms. there are a lot of firms that get paid a lot of money to do the due diligence. i think they're all going to be held accountable. >> how do you answer that, quentin? >> if this does turn out to be the case, it is an utter scandal in the normal behavior of companies that get paid millions of dollars to sell these companies to other companies. >> but quentin, it was a roll-up, right? we've seen this kind of issue over and over again in financial history. once you're a roll-up, there's so much manipulation that can happen. >> well, that's true. >> in february of 2012, $30 a share. you're a pension fund, an individual investor. you're paying $30 a share. now it's $11 or $12. to me, it seems that was an overvalued company

kpmg offered a bewildered response saying it was never involved in the deal. >>> about the only good thing in the fiscal cliff is it keeps greece out of the news. let's turn to bertha coombs live at cnbc world headquarters. >> reporter: yeah, we seem to live and die by the headlines, whether the talk is happy or not coming out of washington but retailers will be in focus as they report their november sales today. despite the strong start to the holiday season, analysts expect sales to be 1.6% rise. the east coast will have a big impact from hurricane sandy. we've got target and macy's both below expectations. but on a high note small businesses hit it big on cyber monday. the digital research firm big commerce said a surge in orders drove overall revenue for small chains and mom and pop stores up 25%. the average order price was also 8% higher. online shoppers bought so much stuff local retailers were averaging about two orders per second and that is about four times the normal daily volume. but i don't know, i like shopping in store at a small boutique, mom and pop store, but i do s

they went through working with kpmg who hp hired to talk about these issues and talking to mike lynchit to ground and say there's no there there. obviously we know different now. >> we're watching company stock decline today. hard to say how much is due to autonomy news and how much may be due to investors concerned about the future for the company so let's go there for a moment. you hit the number that analysts were estimating the company would earn for this currently reported quarter. you have lowered guidance for the first half of next year although at the end of the day you're going to make it up in the second half. why do you have confidence that the second half will be better than the first half of next year? >> first let me say q-4 was a good quarter for hewlett packard. generated $4.1 billion worth of cash, which is more cash than many respected companies like disney and fedex and others reported in their most recent fiscal year and we reduced our net debt position significantly so working hard on restoring our balance sheet. i think people should feel good about that. in addi

we understand from our sources that a team led by executives from kpmg as well as a law firm here in india and as of now, the chief financial officer along with another couple of key executives have been suspended. they've been asked not to report to work until this internal investigation is complete. this couldn't have come at a worst time because remember the india parliament has been given the go ahead as far as walmart being able to step up its stores here in india. so this is going to be another reason for the opposition parties to force the government into a possible reversal of the decision. so it's looking difficult for walmart at this point in time. we've tried to contact the company. they have confirmed the investigation is on. there is no time line that's been given by when they expect a conclusion for this internal investigation, but until the investigation is not complete, we've been given to understand that the chief financial officer and the other executives asked not to report to work will not be allowed to be part of the operati operation. this may jeopardize their e

in addition to deloitte and kpmg, hp's directors, officers, and former directors are also named in the$8 million write-down on autonomy on what they're calling improper accounting. >>> and wells fargo will not be facing any s.e.c. action. they say it's been told that no enforcement action has been recommended. >>> and i didn't win powerball and becky didn't win powerball and frankly you probably didn't either. two won powerball in arizona. we have to congratulate them. 58 winners of $1 million prizes came including 12 in new york and new jersey, in the tri-state area here. >> don't throw your tickets out just yet. >> a million bucks is not something to sniff at. the people who won, the big winners, how much did they actually get? >> i don't know. >> do we know? do they each get $200 million? >> number it's less than that. you have to take the 1 million dollar winners out and after tacks it would only be $220 million after taxes anyway. >> what a waste. what a waste. >> no, no, no. it's still big numbers. >>> we've also been talking about the fiscal cliff. president obama hopeful that i