Mike Lynch, the British tech entrepreneur lately acquitted in a high-stakes £8bn fraud case, is lacking after his yacht sank off the coast of Sicily.
The incident occurred simply weeks after Lynch’s outstanding authorized victory, which noticed him cleared of fraud prices in a US court docket following a 13-year authorized battle with know-how large HP.
Lynch, typically dubbed “Britain’s Bill Gates,” was aboard his 56-metre yacht, Bayesian, named after the statistical methodology central to his educational work, when it was caught in a freak twister off the coast of Palermo. His spouse, Angela Bacares, and several other different passengers have been rescued, however Lynch, his daughter Hannah, and several other others are nonetheless lacking.
The sinking marks a tragic flip of occasions for Lynch, who had lately celebrated his acquittal and expressed intentions to problem the UK’s extradition legal guidelines. Lynch, who based the software program firm Autonomy earlier than promoting it to HP for over £8bn in 2011, had confronted allegations of inflating the corporate’s worth to safe the sale. Regardless of shedding a civil case within the UK, Lynch was discovered not responsible in a prison trial within the US, a verdict that few anticipated.
Lynch’s yacht had been travelling alongside the Sicilian coast when it encountered the storm. Native fishermen described seeing the vessel in misery earlier than it sank, leaving wreckage scattered on the ocean’s floor. Italian authorities are persevering with the seek for the lacking passengers, however hopes are fading.
Lynch, whose wealth was estimated at $450m, primarily lived on a farm in Suffolk, the place he raised uncommon breeds of livestock. Identified for his pioneering work within the tech trade, Lynch additionally performed a key position within the founding of cybersecurity agency Darktrace and was a distinguished investor within the tech sector by means of his enterprise capital agency, Invoke Capital.
