Posted on 09/02/2024 4:41:38 AM PDT by Libloather
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) could pursue the widow of British tech tycoon Mike Lynch for up to £3billion after his death in the Bayesian superyacht disaster.
The US firm won a multi-billion-pound UK High Court claim against Dr Lynch in 2022, accusing him of fraud over its £8billion purchase of his company Autonomy in 2011.
His death on August 19, when his £30million vessel sank during a freak storm off the coast of Sicily, means his family could be liable for any payout decided by the judge.
And HPE is now expected to continue its case against his widow Angela Bacares for money stemming from the ruling - despite the likely negative press for the firm.
Dr Lynch, 59, who was cleared in a separate criminal trial over the Autonomy case in the US in June, died on the yacht with his 18-year-old daughter Hannah on August 19.
Now, HPE has confirmed it will continue with its legal case, with a spokesman telling MailOnline today: 'In 2022, an English High Court judge ruled that HPE had substantially succeeded in its civil fraud claims against Dr Lynch and Mr Hussain.
'A damages hearing was held in February 2024 and the judge's decision regarding damages due to HPE will arrive in due course. It is HPE's intention to follow the proceedings through to their conclusion.'
Just one week ago, a spokesman for HPE was asked by the Daily Mail whether it would rule out pursuing Dr Lynch's estate for damages, but said: 'We do not think it appropriate to comment on legal matters in these tragic circumstances.'
MailOnline contacted HPE today to confirm its latest stance on the matter.
Last week friends of Dr Lynch, including Conservative MP Sir David Davis, called for HPE to drop the claim.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
HP is not pursuing the widow. They are seeking restoration from the estate for his fraud.
Of course there is caveat emptor and HPis a sophisticated business entity with the means to understand what they were buying so there is no fraud.
Bereaved or not, three billion is three billion.
Yeah, even though Mike Lynch God rest his soul has passed, I am sure he was no angel when it came to business.
Exactly. One can sympathize with the widow while recognizing that, if the guy was a thief, justice should be served to the extent it can be.
HPE as it is known now, it was just HP when I worked as a contractor for them and as an employee for a short time, has been a poorly run company since the days of Carly Fiorino.
For example, they had a policy one time that everyone had a mandatory 2-week vacation at the end of the year, if you had PTO available you could take it and still get paid, otherwise your pay was affected.
I had a friend start with them late in the year sometime around October/November, he wasn’t there long enough to build up PTO.
So, when the mandatory vacation came around, he lost pay and went into the new year with a negative amount of PTO for the coming year.
HP had numerous scandals from the time they ran off the family of the original founders, one CEO Mark Hurd who is now CEO of Oracle hired a woman named Jodie Fisher who was alleged to be an “Adult” movie actress, her job was to be at parties when CEOs of other companies were present and flirt with them.
Hurd was fired for sexual harassment of Jodie Fisher and filing false expense reports.
Once HP went from a company that made great products designed and built by Engineers to a company managed for increasing stock prices they went into the crapper.
Much like what Boeing is going thru now without all the publicity.
The bankruptcy referee in the Madoff case got $7.2 billion from the widow of one of Madoff’s associates. The widow agreed to the settlement, apparently because she had a conscience.
HP bought and gutted EDS. I think what is left of EDS ended up with HPE instead of HPC.
Going woke and hiring Carly to run it certainly was the downfall of a once strong company.
After the founders lost control, the last couple of Boards have managed to run Intel into the ground in a similar way.
I was contracted thru EDS to Bank of America, EDS had a huge contract with BofA, EDS basically ran everything for BofA concerning their IT, I was hired on a team that revamped the entire consumer and ATM networks for BofA, later the group I was in started the foundational Voip project for BofA.
I heard the contract with BofA was valued and nearly 1 billion per year, after HP bought EDS, eventually they lost the majority of the contract to Cisco.
HP didn’t learn it’s lesson on hiring woke women to run the company, after Carly Fiorino, a few years later they hired Meg Whitman former CEO of Ebay to run the company, she was the CEO when HP lost the BofA contract.
Why didn’t HP try to send their CEO in jail for buying Compaq back in the 90s?
The company should not be getting bad press over this. A legal claim won is a legal claim won and that a death occurs between the verdict and the payment changes nothing. An heir who receives the assets that should have helped pay the claim is not due any apologies for contiuned pursuit of the payment from those assets.
If I were running a company the likes of HP I would be too embarrassed to admit I had been defrauded by an individual to tune of 3 billion pounds. Seems like really sloppy business to me.
They probably had knowledge of the problems with the company, at the very least they had suspicions IMO.
Just a guess on my part but the executives overlooked the problems so they could report the acquisition and the short-term revenue gains and report to analysts all the great things this company would do for the bottom line, stock prices go up, executives cashout then retire or leave to loot and pillage another company.
Joined by their board of directors. I was looking at the board stock grants of a relatively small company I was screening for purchase. In one year grants to their board members exceed my lifetime earnings. Seems like a lot for a part time job. It is a small club and we ain’t in it.
Still using my HP-15C from 1985. RPN is the only way to go.
And there are people who simply can’t stand it. Of course the hand calculator has gone the way of the dodo bird by now but I stick to it. I still have my sliderule as well but don’t use it except the little one in the truck I use to check my gas mileage though I mostly do it in my head. Still don’t trust that computer in the truck.
I do gas mileage in my head too. The truck display always says it’s getting about 1 mpg better than it actually is.
My old Pickett slide rule is in a desk drawer, but I haven’t actually used it in years. I also used to have a little plastic one for gas mileage, I think it’s in a box of small junk now. Somebody’s going to have a lot of fun sorting through everything after I die.
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