ThrobbingHood
Breh&Breh Associates™
Mike Lynch, the software millionaire missing after the sinking of a superyacht off the coast of Sicily, is one of the few examples of a UK entrepreneur who has created a global technology company.
That fact has led to seemingly obligatory descriptions of him as “Britain’s Bill Gates” but, in truth, his story differs hugely from that of the Microsoft founder.
Less than three months ago, the 59-year-old was cleared of 15 counts of fraud he had faced in the US over the $11.1bn purchase of his company, Autonomy, by the Silicon Valley giant Hewlett-Packard in 2011, a case he feared would end with him dying in prison because of a lung condition.
“I have various medical things that would have made it very difficult to survive”, Lynch told the Sunday Times last month. “If this had gone the wrong way, it would have been the end of life as I have known it in any sense.”
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However, while Autonomy impressed HP enough to pay more than $11bn for the company in 2011, it only took a year for the US computing giant to take an $8.8bn writedown on its acquisition, saying it had discovered “serious accounting improprieties” at the UK company.
Lynch had effectively been involved in defending his reputation ever since – with the legacy of the claims continuing to have ramifications despite the entrepreneur always denying the allegations of wrongdoing.
Autonomy’s former finance director, Sushovan Hussain, was sentenced to five years in prison in the US after being convicted in 2018 of fraud in relation to the HP deal.
In 2022, Lynch lost a civil fraud case brought by HP in the UK, during which it was said that the businessman exerted control over Hussain and that it was inconceivable that Autonomy’s founder was unaware of the fraudulent practices alleged to have taken place at his company.
Mr Justice Hildyard, the high court judge in the case, had been due to rule on HP’s claim for $4bn in damages and had said the amount he intended to award would be much lower. Lynch had said he intended to appeal against the ruling.
Who is Mike Lynch, the UK tech boss missing in superyacht sinking?
After selling his company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard he was cleared in June of 15 counts of fraud
www.theguardian.com
