Drowned when yacht sank
HP still wants compensation despite the death of multimillionaire Lynch
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Seven people die when the sailing yacht “Bayesian” sinks off Sicily, including the owner Mike Lynch. The Brit was in a billion-dollar legal dispute with the Hewlett Packard company. Despite the death, he does not want to give up his claim.
Despite Mike Lynch's death when his sailing yacht sank, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is sticking to a billion-dollar claim for damages against the British tech entrepreneur. “HPE intends to see the process through to completion,” the US company said. Lynch's widow Angela Bacares, who survived the shipwreck off Sicily, would probably be liable, it was said in London.
HPE claims that it won a civil lawsuit against Lynch and his former finance chief in a British court in 2022. The company is demanding four billion US dollars (3.62 billion euros) in compensation. A decision is expected soon. However, the judge has already indicated that possible damages would be significantly lower.
The 59-year-old entrepreneur was at times celebrated as the “British Bill Gates” – and won an unexpected victory in a lawsuit in the summer. The background was the sale of Lynch's company Autonomy to Hewlett Packard in 2011 for eleven billion dollars. HP celebrated the acquisition of the business software Autonomy as a great success – but the deal turned into a debacle. A year later, HP accused Lynch and other Autonomy executives of inflating their company's sales in the years before the acquisition. HP had to write off billions of dollars and fired Lynch, who remained head of Autonomy. Lynch himself always claimed that he had done nothing unfair.
18-year-old daughter dies when luxury yacht sinks
After years of legal tug-of-war, the Briton was extradited to the USA and tried for accounting falsification. But last June, Lynch was acquitted by a jury. However, Lynch's legal problems were not over yet. HP was largely successful in its civil suit against Lynch. However, it has not yet been decided how much money the company is actually entitled to.
Lynch died when his luxury yacht “Bayesian” sank on August 19th. His 18-year-old daughter and five other people also died. The passengers were traveling to celebrate Lynch's acquittal in a US fraud trial over the Autonomy takeover process, which was heard separately from the case in Great Britain.
