The
court's decision comes on the same day as Britain has to decide
whether or not to extradite Lynch to the United States after
almost a decade of bitter wrangling over who was to blame for
the failure of Hewlett-Packard's $11 billion takeover of Lynch's
Autonomy.
HP had sued Lynch, arguing that he had fraudulently inflated the
value of Autonomy before he sold it to the U.S. tech giant.
Lynch had argued that HP mismanaged the acquisition.
High Court Justice Robert Hildyard said HP had substantially
succeeded in their case but the damages would be less than they
were demanding.
Lynch faces separate criminal charges in the U.S., including
wire fraud and securities fraud.
A year after acquiring Autonomy, HP threw out the architect of
the deal which was supposed to help transform the computer and
printer maker, one of Silicon Valley’s original companies, into
a more profitable group centred on business software and
services.
It wrote down the value of Autonomy by $8.8 billion and sought
damages of around $5 billion from Lynch and his colleague
Sushovan Hussain, alleging they inflated the value of Autonomy
before selling it. Hussain was convicted in the United States in
2019.
Lynch has denied all the allegations.
Lynch is due to hear on Friday whether Britain's interior
minister Priti Patel has approved the extradition request to the
United States.
A court has given Patel until midnight on Friday to make a
decision, although Lynch could appeal any ruling that goes
against him. The U.S. charges carry a maximum term of 20 years
imprisonment.
Lynch is one of Britain's leading tech bosses. He founded
Autonomy which was capable of searching and organising
unstructured information, such as telephone conversations.
The 56-year-old's doctoral thesis remains one of the most
consulted at Cambridge University and his success, including the
around $800 million he made from his stake in Autonomy, elevated
his position in Britain, giving him a place on government
advisory boards.
Lynch was also central to the creation of DarkTrace, a cyber
security firm that listed on the stock market last year. Lynch
and his wife Angela Bacares own nearly 16% of DarkTrace,
according to Refinitiv data.
(Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Elaine Hardcastle)
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