Mike Lynch’s family set for HP bill ruling: Widow could be forced to pay out billions in High Court fraud case

By JOHN-PAUL FORD ROJAS

Updated: 22:00 BST, 5 May 2025

Mike Lynch’s grieving family will learn within weeks how much in damages they must pay after a multi-billion- pound claim brought by Hewlett-Packard.

The US tech giant won a High Court claim against the tech tycoon in 2022 after accusing him of fraud over its 2011 purchase of his company Autonomy.

His death last summer – when his £30million Bayesian superyacht sank during a storm off the coast of Sicily – means his family will be liable for any damages decided by the judge.

A judicial office spokesman told the Mail that the judgment was expected to be handed down some time during the current legal term which runs from April 29 to May 23.

Friends of Lynch, including Conservative MP David Davis, had previously called for Hewlett-Packard to drop the claim. 

But the company said last September that it intended ‘to follow the proceedings through to their conclusion’.

Damages: HP won a High Court claim against Mike Lynch in 2022 after accusing him of fraud over its 2011 purchase of his company Autonomy

Lynch, 59, had only just been cleared in a separate US criminal trial over the Autonomy case when he and his daughter Hannah, 18, died when the Bayesian sank.

They were among seven who drowned after he invited a group of friends, family and associates on to the yacht to celebrate being cleared of fraud charges which could have seen him jailed for 20 years. 

Now, his family, including widow Angela Bacares, 58, could be left with a mammoth legal bill relating to the Autonomy episode.

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) won its civil case over claims that Lynch and Autonomy’s former finance chief Sushovan Hussain inflated the revenues of the Cambridge-based business before Hewlett-Packard’s £8billion takeover.

The US firm initially sought £4billion but Mr Justice Hildyard ruled the amount would be ‘substantially less’.

The judgment comes as efforts are under way to raise Lynch’s superyacht in a £20million salvage operation. Investigators are seeking to explain why the vessel sank in just 16 minutes in the freak storm last August.

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Mike Lynch’s family set for HP bill ruling: Widow could be forced to pay out billions in High Court fraud case

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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk