Mike Lynch's Estate and Business Partner Owe HP $944M, Court Rules

The estate of Mike Lynch, who died a year ago when his superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily, and his business partner owe Hewlett-Packard more than $944 million, a court has ruled. From a report: The US technology company has been seeking damages of up to $4.55 billion from the estate of the late tycoon, once hailed as the UK's answer to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, over its disastrous takeover of his British software company Autonomy.

Lynch's estate has been estimated to be worth about $674 million and paying its share of the $944 million damages could leave it bankrupt. He and six others, including his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, died last August on a trip celebrating his acquittal on US fraud charges relating to HP's $11 billion takeover of Autonomy in 2011. However, HP won a separate six-year civil fraud case against Lynch and his former finance director Sushovan Hussain in the English high court in 2022, with Mr Justice Hildyard ruling that the US company had been induced into overpaying for the business.

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