UK court docket awards £700 million to HP in late tycoon’s 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 Invoice Gates”, based software program agency Autonomy within the Nineties. Its $11 billion sale to Hewlett Packard in 2011 additionally noticed him face fraud costs in america.

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

“We’re happy that this resolution brings us a step nearer to the decision of this dispute,” mentioned a spokesperson for Hewlett Packard.

“We look ahead to the additional listening to at which the ultimate quantity of HPE’s damages shall be decided,” they added.

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

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

Lynch, 59, his household and company have been on board celebrating his acquittal within the huge 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.

However justice Robert Hildyard within the British case wrote in his ruling that “HP’s declare was all the time considerably exaggerated”.

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

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

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