Hewlett Packard owes more than 700 millions pounds ($944million) to the estates of Mike Lynch, the late business partner of Lynch's and their former business partners over the acquisition of Autonomy by Hewlett Packard. This was revealed on Tuesday by a London High Court judge.

HP wanted to recover its losses from Lynch, who died when his luxury boat sank in Sicily last year. It also wanted Autonomy's former Chief Financial Officer Sushovan Hussain.

The U.S. tech giant filed a lawsuit against Lynch and Hussain, accusing them to masterminding a fraud to inflate Autonomy's value. HP purchased Autonomy for $11.1 billion back in 2011, before the deal collapsed spectacularly.

HP wrote down Autonomy’s value by $8.8 Billion within a year. They also brought a lawsuit in London for $5 Billion against Lynch and Hussain, and a judge ruled in HP's favor in 2022.

Lynch, who was once described as Britain's Bill Gates, always maintained his innocence, and blamed HP when it failed to integrate Autonomy within the company.

The High Court 2022 ruling was set aside pending the Tuesday decision on damages. He had been cleared of criminal charges in the U.S. over the deal.

Judge Robert Hildyard found that HP suffered losses of more than 646 million pounds ($871.8) in relation to what HP paid for Autonomy compared with what HP would have been paying "had Autonomy’s true financial situation been presented correctly".

Hilyard said that HP is entitled to an additional 51.7 million pounds for "personal claims of deception and/or misrepresentation" against Dr Lynch and M Hussain, plus another $47.5 millions in relation losses suffered by the group companies.

HP claimed at an hearing last year it wanted up to $4 billion. Hussain reached a settlement with HP in early this year.

(source: Reuters)