Hewlett-Packard to Receive Record-Breaking £930 Million Damages from Late Tycoon Mike Lynch

A UK court has ordered the estate of late tycoon Mike Lynch to pay a staggering £930 million in damages to Hewlett-Packard, the technology giant that acquired Lynch’s Cambridge-based firm, Autonomy Corporation, in 2011 for £8.2 billion. The high court ruling comes after a lengthy and complex legal battle between HP and Lynch’s estate, which is claiming that the acquisition was unfair and that the deal’s valuation was inflated by HP’s own executives. In July 2020, an independent review board concluded that HP had indeed been duped by Autonomy’s false claims about its financial health, leading to a significant write-down of the company’s value. The report found that Autonomy’s CEO, Mike Lynch, and his son, Josh Lynch, had used “aggressive” accounting tactics to misrepresent the firm’s financial performance. The £930 million damages award is one of the largest in UK corporate law history, and it marks a significant victory for HP in its long-running dispute with Lynch’s estate.