COMPUTER firm Hewlett-Packard (HP) has been accused in a court filing of mismanagement in its 2011 takeover of UK software firm Autonomy.

Autonomy's ex-chief financial officer Sushovan Hussain said HP wanted to cover up its mismanagement of the Autonomy integration.

Mr Hussain's San Francisco court filing is the latest salvo in an ongoing legal battle between HP and Autonomy.

HP paid £6.5bn for Autonomy but a year later said it was worth £5.2bn less.

HP and its shareholders have been fighting a legal battle accusing both Autonomy's founder and former chief executive Michael Lynch, as well as Mr Hussain, of misleading them over the true value of the company.

On August 5, in a San Francisco court filing HP said that shareholders and management agreed "that [Mr] Hussain, along with Autonomy's founder and CEO, Michael Lynch, should be accountable for this fraud".

And it accused Mr Hussain of being "one of the chief architects of the massive fraud on HP".

In Tuesday's response, Mr Hussain said he wanted to "shine a light on what HP wants to keep in the dark" and address its "ploy to falsely accuse others".

"HP's Opposition swells with bile, but its sound and fury signify nothing," he wrote.

More than a year ago, the UK's accounting regulator, the Financial Reporting Council, (FRC) began an investigation into Autonomy's reporting for the accounting period of January 2009 to June 2011, before it was bought by the US firm HP.

The UK's Serious Fraud Office and the US Department of Justice are also investigating.