Hewlett Packard chief defends pursuit of Lynch household in fraud lawsuit

Hewlett Packard Enterprises’s boss has hit back after his company was accused of ‘a complete lack of humility’ for suing the family of Mike Lynch following his death.

Antonio Neri, chief executive of the US software group, said it was a ‘difficult’ decision to continue the £3billion fraud lawsuit against the British tycoon’s estate. 

But he insisted the move was ‘in the best interest of shareholders’.

Lawsuit: UK software tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah (pictured) were among seven people who died when his superyacht Bayesian sank off Sicily last month

Lynch, 59, and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah were among seven people who died when superyacht Bayesian sank off Sicily last month.

The family was celebrating Lynch’s acquittal on US fraud charges relating to Hewlett Packard’s £8billion purchase of his technology company Autonomy in 2011.

The decision by Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) to continue with separate legal action against Lynch’s estate following his death has sparked outrage.

Patrick Jacob, a close friend of the entrepreneur, last week accused HPE of first ‘pursuing a man through a relentless battle in the press’ and now going after his widow, Angela Bacares, 57, who survived.

‘Before the bodies are even laid to rest, they’ve already begun circling like vultures, demonstrating a complete lack of humanity,’ Jacob said last week. ‘This is nothing short of heartless and distasteful.’

But speaking to the Financial Times yesterday, Neri, 57, said Lynch’s acquittal and then death did not change HPE’s plan to pursue a separate civil claim over the acquisition. 

He said: ‘Obviously, my job as a representative of shareholders is to make the difficult decisions. But in the end, we are making decisions in the best interest of shareholders.

‘What we saw is a sad story. But the reality of what happened does not change what happened in the past decade or so, where we believe wrongdoing was done, and therefore, we have to see through the process.’

Although Lynch was cleared of US criminal charges in June over the sale of Autonomy, HPE won a civil lawsuit in the High Court in 2022.

A judge is expected to award damages by the end of the year.