Mike Lynch's Estate Ordered to Pay Hewlett Packard $945 Million
The decision, which had been delayed several months after the death of Mr. Lynch, was a long-awaited development in the legal fight over Autonomy, the software company he sold to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion. Hewlett-Packard later accused Mr. Lynch and others of fraudulently inflating the company's value.
The amount was far less than the $4 billion sought by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a successor company to Hewlett-Packard. 'I consider that HP's claim was always substantially exaggerated,' the presiding judge, Robert Hildyard, wrote in the decision.
But the judgment is more than the current value of the Lynch estate, which The Times of London recently appraised at about £473 million. The estate is on the hook for a majority of the damages owed to Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
The judgment was the latest twist in Mr. Lynch's story. He had been heralded as Britain's answer to Bill Gates after the Autonomy sale, but soon after that deal Hewlett-Packard accused top Autonomy executives, including Mr. Lynch, of lying about the state of the business, and wrote down the value of Autonomy by $8.8 billion.
In 2015, Hewlett-Packard accused the British executive and the company's former chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, of fraud and sued them in a London court. Both men denied the allegations.
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