UK court docket awards 700 million to HP in late tycoon Mike Lynchs fraud case

A UK court docket Tuesday awarded £700 million ($946 million) compensation to IT agency Hewlett Packard in a fraud case involving late British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, killed final 12 months when his superyacht sank off Sicily.

A UK court docket dominated in 2022 in favour of the U.S. know-how large, now often called Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), in a civil case linked to the sale of Lynch’s firm, Autonomy.

Lynch, as soon as dubbed the “British Bill Gates”, based software program agency Autonomy within the Nineteen Nineties. Its $11 billion sale to Hewlett Packard in 2011 additionally noticed him face fraud expenses within the United States.

HP accused Autonomy of artificially inflating its revenues and progress earlier than the sale and had demanded $5 billion in compensation.

“We are pleased that this decision brings us a step closer to the resolution of this dispute,” mentioned a spokesperson for Hewlett Packard.

“We look forward to the further hearing at which the final amount of HPE’s damages will be determined,” they added.

The additional listening to, coping with issues together with curiosity, forex conversion and whether or not Lynch’s property can enchantment the choice, is scheduled for November.

The British court docket had not but awarded damages when Lynch was killed alongside along with his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, 4 pals and the yacht’s cook dinner within the sinking of his British-flagged vessel Bayesian in a storm in August 2024.

Lynch, 59, his household and visitors had been on board celebrating his acquittal within the large U.S. fraud case.

The 56-metre (185-foot) yacht was struck by a mini-tornado earlier than daybreak because it was anchored off Porticello, close to Palermo.

Hewlett Packard had recorded almost $9 billion in write-downs, together with greater than $5 billion it claimed resulted from accounting manipulations by Autonomy’s administrators earlier than the sale.

But justice Robert Hildyard within the British case wrote in his ruling that “HP’s claim was always substantially exaggerated”.

The preliminary compensation award had been anticipated in September 2024, and earlier than his sudden loss of life Lynch had ready a written response to the judgement.

The ruling “exposes HP’s failure and makes clear that the immense damage to Autonomy was down to HP’s own errors and actions”, he wrote, including that the corporate would think about interesting the choice.

A spokesman advised AFP any money owed must be discharged from Lynch’s property.