Mike Lynch saw Autonomy as 'Trojan horse to take over Hewlett-Packard' Mr Lynch has claimed that Leo Apotheker, who was chief executive of HP when the deal was signed, appreciated the "entrepreneurial spirit" of Autonomy, which specialises in systems to search "unstructured information" such as voicemails and texts. However, Mr Apotheker was ousted shortly after the acquisition, and his successor, Meg Whitman, destroyed Autonomy's value through mismanagement, Mr Lynch claimed. Meanwhile, it emerged on Thursday that the whistleblower who first alerted HP to the possibility that Autonomy may have been cooking the books, stands to net a huge windfall from their decision to make the scandal public. HP said on Tuesday that a "senior level employee" still working at Autonomy had come forward after Mr Lynch left the company in May. It appointed accountancy firm PwC to investigate the whistleblower's claims, before taking the matter to America's Securities and Exchange Commission and the Serious Fraud Office in London last week. If the whistleblower had approached the SEC directly, he or she would have been entitled to a cash reward of between 10pc and 30pc of any fines levied on the companies, provided they totalled more than $1m. That executive may still net a windfall under the SEC's scheme to incentivise whistleblowers, but it is at the discretion of the American watchdog. It will also depend on whether more than 120 days have elapsed between the whistleblower approaching HP's management and that information being passed on to the SEC.