Judge Orders Mike Lynch's Estate to Pay Nearly $1B to HP

A judge in London has ruled that the estate of late British tech executive Mike Lynch and his former business partner must pay Hewlett Packard Enterprise $945 million over the disputed 2011 sale of Lynch's software firm, Autonomy. The judge's decision, announced Tuesday, caps a protracted legal fight that intensified after Lynch's death in a yacht accident off Italy's coast last summer, the New York Times reports.

• Hewlett Packard had acquired Autonomy for $11 billion, only to later allege that Lynch and others fraudulently inflated its value, leading to an $8.8 billion write-down. The company initially sought $4 billion in damages, but the judge found that claim "substantially exaggerated," awarding less than a quarter of the amount. Still, the judgment exceeds the reported current value of Lynch's estate, estimated at $640 million.

• Lynch, once hailed as Britain's answer to Bill Gates, denied the fraud allegations, but was found liable—alongside former CFO Sushovan Hussain—in a lengthy case that the judge described as among the most complex in English legal history. While Hussain was convicted of criminal fraud in 2018, Lynch was cleared of criminal charges in 2024. Lynch and attorney Christopher Morvillo were celebrating the acquittal during the ill-fated yacht trip months later.
• Lynch, his teen daughter Hannah, Morvillo, and four others died in August 2024 when his superyacht Bayesian capsized near Sicily. His wife survived.
• During Tuesday's hearing, the judge expressed "sorrow at this devastating turn of events, and my sympathy and deepest condolences," the BBC reports. He said that despite his ruling, he "admired" Lynch.
• The Lynch estate released a statement Tuesday criticizing Hewlett Packard's damages claim as overstated by "80%." The estate's administrator is considering an appeal.