A UK High Court has ruled that Hewlett Packard (HP) is entitled to over $940 million from the estate of the late Mike Lynch, the founder of Autonomy, the software firm HP acquired in 2011 for $11.1 billion. The court determined that HP had overpaid for Autonomy, which misrepresented its financial status, leading to a substantial loss for HP and the $5 billion fraud lawsuit that followed the acquisition’s collapse.
HP is now awarded £698 million (approximately $944 million) in damages, related to the overpayment, as well as an additional $47.5 million for other losses. The original damages claim was up to $5 billion, but the final amount was considerably less than what HP had initially sought.
Lynch, who passed away in 2024, had always maintained his innocence in the case, attributing the failed integration to HP’s mishandling of the acquisition. A further hearing is scheduled for November to determine how the damages will be split between Lynch’s estate and his former business partner, Sushovan Hussain, who settled with HP earlier in the year.
Judge Robert Hildyard, in his ruling, noted that HP would have paid less per share if it had known the true financial state of Autonomy, though he emphasized that the original $5 billion claim was “substantially exaggerated.”
