The story of Hewlett-Packard, an outwardly staid technology company, has come to resemble the plotline of an improbable corporate soap opera.

It has included, during the past decade, the firings of three chief executives, one after a probe into claims of sexual harassment; a salacious boardroom spying scandal that resulted in the resignation of its then-chairwoman; and a spate of highly controversial multibillion-dollar deals, including one that sparked a public feud between management and heirs of the company’s founders.

Now, to top it off, come claims of massive accounting distortion at Autonomy, the British software company that was the object of the latest of those deals. By the end of this week at least one criminal investigation had been launched into the affair, by the FBI.