London
AP
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A British High Court judge ruled on Tuesday that Hewlett Packard owed £700 million ($943 million) by British tech tycoon Mike Lynch's real estate and its former finance director for losing a fraud case involving Lynch Software.
The court's ruling came a year after Lynch was killed when his superyacht sank in Sicily, where he gathered with friends and family to celebrate his acquittal a few months ago.
The American tech company, now known as HPE, acquired Lynch’s company Autonomy Corp for $11 billion, accusing Lynch of fraud and conspiracy.
HPE also brought Lynch to a British court to seek up to $4 billion in damages in civil cases. The High Court mostly ruled in 2022 that HPE was supported, but the judge said the amount awarded was “much less than what the company seeks.”
Judge Robert Hildyard was initially due to a draft ruling issued in September, but on August 19, the Bayesian delayed the ruling, sank in a storm in Sicily on August 19. Lynch and his daughter are seven dead, 15 of whom survived, including the captain and most of the crew.
Hildyard expressed his “sympathy and deepest condolences” to Lynch's wife and family in his written judgment.
Hildiad said HPE lost £646 million based on the difference between the purchase price of autonomy and the “real financial situation” of autonomy.
HPE also owed £51.7 million for “personal claims related to fraud and/or misrepresentation” and other losses in connection with Treasury Directors Lynch and Sushovan Hussain.
Hussein was convicted in the 2018 trial of the U.S. telegraph fraud case and other crimes related to autonomous sales and was sentenced to five years in prison.
“We are pleased that this decision brings us closer to a step to resolving this dispute,” HPE said in a statement. “We look forward to further hearings that will ultimately determine the final compensation for HPE damages.”
A hearing on the interest, currency conversion and whether Lynch's property can be appealed is scheduled for November.
Lynch said in a statement written before his death and issued after his death that the ruling showed that HP's original claim “is not only a crazy exaggeration — misleading shareholders — but it scored less than 80%.
“This result exposed HP's failure and made it clear that the huge damage to autonomy depends on HP's own mistakes and actions,” he said.