The FAST fiasco continues. Thanks to Joe Tartakoff for alerting us to this article on Reuters that details the latest in the sad story of Microsoft’s acquisition of Fast Search & Transfer (they paid $1.2B in February for it).

Here’s the story from Norwegian police attorney Baard Thorsen:

"We are raiding Fast’s offices now to secure evidence," police attorney Baard Thorsen said. "The charge is for accounting fraud."

Source: Reuters

Here’s a tip for spotting dodgy accounting practices. It’s when comments like this are made that you need to start raising an eyebrow:

.the company said in mid 2007 it would no longer recognise revenues from memorandums of understanding, and instead book revenue only from final deals.

Fast is alleged to have inflated revenue by USD 40M (on a 162M total).

Keep in mind all of these alleged accounting practices happened long before Microsoft got involved, and in all probability being acquired is the best thing to happen to the company (Microsoft is well known for having rock solid accounting and financial practices).

And, just because their directors fucked up the company accounts doesn’t mean that the technology behind the business isn’t worthy. Time will tell.

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