\n<\/p>\n
The estate of the late British tech tycoon Mike Lynch has been ordered to pay \u00a3920m to the technology company Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) two years after he died in a superyacht disaster.<\/p>\n
The ruling by London\u2019s high court said the estate was liable to pay the sum as compensation, costs and interest for the acquisition of Lynch\u2019s firm Autonomy by Hewlett-Packard (HP), after a UK legal ruling in 2022 that he duped the US company into paying \u00a38.2bn for the software firm.<\/p>\n
HP split into two separate companies in 2015 \u2013 one still called HP, which focuses on printers and PCs, and the software and hardware company HPE.<\/p>\n
The deceased entrepreneur\u2019s estate has been estimated to be worth about \u00a3500m, so the damages could leave it bankrupt.<\/p>\n
Lynch and six others, including his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, died in August 2024 during a trip with friends and family to celebrate his acquittal on US fraud charges relating to HP\u2019s $11bn (\u00a38.2bn) takeover of Autonomy in 2011.<\/p>\n
HP accused Lynch and Autonomy\u2019s former chief financial officer Sushovan Hussain of inflating the firm\u2019s value before the takeover. HP wrote down Autonomy\u2019s worth by $8.8bn within a year of the purchase.<\/p>\n
The US tech company has sought damages in UK civil proceedings of up to $4.55bn from the estate of the late tycoon, who was once hailed as Britain\u2019s answer to the Microsoft founder, Bill Gates.<\/p>\n
However, the level of the claim was ruled last year by the high court to be \u201calways exaggerated\u201d, as it concluded that Lynch\u2019s estate owed \u00a3700m in compensation. The \u00a3920m figure includes costs and interest.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for Lynch\u2019s estate sought permission to appeal against Tuesday\u2019s ruling, which was refused. However, the estate can apply directly to the court of appeal.<\/p>\n
HPE welcomed the decision, which it said in a statement \u201cbrings us another step closer to resolution of the dispute\u201d.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Lynch family said: \u201cWe are disappointed by the court\u2019s refusal and believe an application to the court of appeal should follow in the interests of justice. HP\u2019s $5bn damages claim has already been shown to be vastly exaggerated.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s judgment describes the exaggeration as \u2018without foundation\u2019 and the purposes for which it was \u2018calibrated, publicised and pursued\u2019 as objectionable, misleading shareholders and extending the litigation unnecessarily.<\/p>\n
\u201cDr Lynch\u2019s acquittal in the US, where witnesses were properly cross-examined, exposed the truth. The damage to Autonomy was the result of HP\u2019s own actions and failures, not wrongdoing at Autonomy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The estate of the late British tech tycoon Mike Lynch has been ordered to pay \u00a3920m to the technology company Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) two years after he died in a superyacht disaster. The ruling by London\u2019s high court said the estate was liable to pay the sum as compensation, costs and interest for the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[23995,4517,709,23996,23994,4520,7244,23997,1040,1534,722],"class_list":{"0":"post-47449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-920m","9":"tag-enterprise","10":"tag-estate","11":"tag-hewlett","12":"tag-lynch","13":"tag-mike","14":"tag-ordered","15":"tag-packard","16":"tag-pay","17":"tag-sector","18":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}