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Lynch and his daughter died after a luxury yacht sank last month, but HP is intent on following a civil case against him ‘to its conclusion’.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) has confirmed plans to pursue the estate of recently deceased tech billionaire Mike Lynch.
Lynch – the ‘British Bill Gates’ behind the Autonomy start-up – went missing last month after a luxury vessel sank off the coast of Sicily. The bodies of Lynch and his daughter Hannah were eventually found in the wreckage.
Lynch had been cleared of all fraud charges in a legal battle against HP only months prior to the incident. HP accused Lynch of fraud over its $11bn takeover of the software company Autonomy in 2011.
While he won this major criminal case, HP won a civil fraud case against Lynch in 2022.
This civil fraud case is the one HP intends to pursue, despite Lynch’s death. A ruling on damages from the civil case is expected soon, though the amount of damages is estimated to be far less than what HP originally wanted. HP told The Guardian that it intends to “follow the proceedings through to their conclusion”.
The Sunday Times first reported that HP may pursue Lynch’s widow, Angela Bacares, for up to $4bn. Bacares was one of the 15 survivors who were rescued from the luxury yacht.
A massive legal battle
Around a year after Lynch sold Autonomy to HP, the company wrote down the value of the start-up by $8.8bn and attributed $5bn of this drop to “accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations”. The tech giant went on to sue Lynch and former Autonomy CFO Sushovan Hussain for this $5bn drop.
The tech tycoon became embroiled in legal battles with US authorities for many years, including being subject to what his lawyers call a “protracted and unfair” extradition process to the US – one that he fought hard to avoid.
Autonomy’s former CFO Hussain was given a five-year prison sentence for fraud in relation to the HP deal in 2019.
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