Hewlett Packard Enterprise is asking for almost $1.8 billion from the estate of Mike Lynch, the late British tech entrepreneur, over its failed purchase of his company, Autonomy. The U.S. tech giant made this claim in London’s High Court on Tuesday as part of a long-running legal battle.
HP bought Autonomy in 2011 for $11.1 billion, hoping the deal would boost its software business. But within a year, the company wrote down Autonomy’s value by $8.8 billion, saying Lynch and Autonomy’s former CFO, Sushovan Hussain, had inflated the company’s worth. HP says it lost nearly £698 million (around $1 billion at the time) because it paid too much based on false financial information.
The case has been dragging on for years. HP first filed a $5 billion lawsuit against Lynch and Hussain in 2015. In 2022, the High Court found Lynch liable but noted that HP would recover far less than $5 billion. Now, HP’s legal team wants $1.79 billion, a figure that includes interest and previous settlements.
Lynch’s estate plans to appeal the ruling. Its lawyers argue the $761 million sought as interest is too high and have raised concerns that the estate might not have enough assets to cover the claim. A spokesperson for Lynch’s family said HP’s demands are “fundamentally flawed” and exaggerated.
Mike Lynch was once hailed as Britain’s answer to Bill Gates. He founded Autonomy based on his research at Cambridge University and helped build the company into a major software player. Despite the legal trouble, Lynch always denied wrongdoing. He blamed HP for failing to integrate Autonomy properly. In fact, Lynch was cleared of related criminal charges in the U.S. earlier this year.
Tragically, Lynch passed away last August when his luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily. His 18-year-old daughter also died in the accident during a holiday celebrating his acquittal.
This case highlights the risks companies face when making big acquisitions and the challenges in sorting out responsibility when deals go wrong. For now, the fight over the Autonomy purchase is far from over, with more legal battles likely still to come.