In his evidence, Apotheker said he didn't mind dissent and would have postponed the deal if the board had wanted to do so. But in private, a flurry of emails were being sent as the directors held their discussions.

During the meeting, Lesjak sent an email to Chairman Raymond Lane that described Apotheker as “a dead man walking.” “There is no financial discipline,” she said, and HP had “no real plan.”

When questioned whether it was appropriate to send the messages, Lesjak replied: “I wanted him to know what was really going on.”

Apotheker was fired in September 2011, shortly before the Autonomy deal was completed, while Lesjak remained at the firm until February this year. She was speaking at the midway point of the trial where Autonomy founder Mike Lynch is accused of overseeing a massive fraud that led HP into overpaying for his company. A key issue of the case has been the level of due diligence that HP conducted and the extent to which HP knew what it was buying.

Lesjak said she couldn't remember discussing a series of slides prepared by auditor EY in November 2011 that laid out how Autonomy, once the U.K.'s second-largest software company, was also selling hardware. In one email, she signed off, saying the decks looked good.

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