Mike Lynch’s estate wins right to challenge $1.2 billion HP fraud ruling

Mike Lynch’s estate has been allowed to challenge part of a ruling ordering it to pay Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) more than $1.2 billion over its acquisition of software company Autonomy.

In 2022, Mr Justice Hildyard ruled that HPE had “substantially won” its multibillion-dollar fraud claim against Mr Lynch over its 2011 purchase of Autonomy, which the businessman founded.

Earlier this year, the same judge ordered that the estate pay a total of $1,235,129,122 (£911.8 million), while refusing it permission to appeal against both his 2022 ruling and a second judgment from July 2025 that found HPE suffered losses amounting to around £700 million.

But a spokesperson for the Lynch family confirmed that lawyers have launched a successful Court of Appeal bid to challenge some of the findings.

Last week, Lady Justice Asplin allowed four of the 14 grounds of appeal to proceed, according to court documents.

Part of the appeal will now examine whether Mr Lynch was aware of improper accounting at Autonomy.

Mr Lynch’s family said: “We welcome the Court of Appeal’s decision to grant permission to appeal.

“The questions to be heard confirm what Mr Lynch always maintained: that HP’s claim was wildly exaggerated and HP’s losses stemmed overwhelmingly from its own conduct after the acquisition.”

HPE sued Mr Lynch for around $5 billion (£3.79 billion) in 2015 following its purchase of Cambridge-based Autonomy for $11.1 billion (£8.2 billion) in 2011.

It claimed at a nine-month trial in 2019 – then believed to be the UK’s biggest civil fraud trial – that Mr Lynch inflated Autonomy’s revenues and “committed a deliberate fraud over a sustained period of time”.

It said this forced it to announce an $8.8 billion (£6.5 billion) write-down of the firm’s worth just over a year after the acquisition.

In a ruling in 2022, Mr Justice Hildyard said the American firm had “substantially succeeded” in its claim, but that it was likely to receive “substantially less” than the amount it claimed in damages.

He said that Autonomy, founded by Mr Lynch, had not accurately portrayed its financial position during the purchase, but even if it had, HPE would still have bought the company, but at a reduced price.

Mr Lynch died aged 59 in August 2024 along with his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, and five others when his yacht – the Bayesian – sank off the coast of Sicily.