
HP owed over $940 million by Mike Lynchs estate, ex-business partner, UK court rules
HP was seeking to recoup its losses from Lynch – who died last year when his luxury yacht sank off Sicily – and Autonomy's former chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain.
The U.S. technology giant sued Lynch and Hussain accusing them of masterminding an elaborate fraud to inflate the value of Autonomy, which HP bought for $11.1 billion in 2011 before the deal spectacularly unravelled.
HP wrote down Autonomy's value by $8.8 billion within a year and brought a $5 billion lawsuit against Lynch and Hussain in London, with a judge ruling in HP's favour in 2022.
Lynch, once hailed as Britain's answer to Bill Gates, had always maintained his innocence and blamed HP for failing to integrate Autonomy into the company.
He was acquitted of criminal charges over the deal in the U.S. and had intended to appeal the High Court's 2022 ruling, a process which was on hold pending Tuesday's decision on damages.
Judge Robert Hildyard ruled HP sustained losses of over 646 million pounds in relation to the difference between what HP paid for Autonomy and what HP would have paid "had Autonomy's true financial position been correctly presented".
Hilyard also said HP was entitled to another 51.7 million pounds in relation to "personal claims for deceit and/or misrepresentation against Dr Lynch and Mr Hussain", plus another $47.5 million in relation to losses suffered by group companies.
HP said at a hearing last year that it was seeking up to $4 billion. Hussain settled with HP earlier this year.

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Fibre2Fashion
8 minutes ago
- Fibre2Fashion
Indian industry leaders weigh in on CETA with UK
During the recent London visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India and the United Kingdom officially signed a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), marking a significant advancement in strengthening bilateral economic relations. The deal signed by Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and his British counterpart Jonathan Reynold in the presence of Prime Minister Modi and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is designed to reduce tariffs on a wide range of goods—including textiles, whisky, and automobiles—while also enhancing market opportunities for businesses in both countries. According to the agreement, 99 per cent of Indian exports to the UKâ€' encompassing over 1,143 crucial textile and clothing itemsâ€'will now enjoy zero-duty access. Stakeholders confident the deal between the world's sixth- and fifth-largest economies will significantly benefit the Indian textile and apparel sector. The zero-duty regime is expected to take at least a year to come into effect. The trade talks, which spanned over three years with intermittent progress, reached a conclusion in May. Negotiators on both sides accelerated efforts to finalise the deal against the backdrop of global tariff disruptions set in motion by the Trump administration. Bringing together two of the world's top economies —ranked sixth and fifth globally—the deal sets an ambitious goal of increasing bilateral trade by $34 billion by 2040. For the United Kingdom, this is its most substantial trade pact since its departure from the European Union in 2020. For India, it marks a major strategic breakthrough, establishing a comprehensive economic partnership with an advanced economy and potentially laying the groundwork for similar agreements with the European Union and other global partners. According to the agreement, 99 per cent of Indian exports to the UK— encompassing over 1,143 crucial textile and clothing items, as per reports—will now enjoy zero-duty access, providing Indian exporters with a stronger foothold in the British market. Reacting on the development. Sudhir Sekhri, Chairman AEPC , said, 'The signing of the landmark India-UK bilateral trade agreement, marks a significant milestone in strengthening the strategic and economic ties between the two nations. This deal will usher a new era of garment trade with the UK. This agreement will enhance market access, spur investment and job creation in the garment sector, besides creating new opportunities for businesses and consumers on both sides.' 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Economic Times
36 minutes ago
- Economic Times
There is more scope for Indian investment in the UK than the other way around: Swaminathan Aiyar
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Swaminathan Aiyar: There are a number of issues. As far as investment is concerned, will this help mutual investment? Will this help Indian investment in the UK? Will it help British investment in India? I am not sure to what extent it will boost British investment in India. The reason is that Britain hardly produces many goods anymore. It used to be a large exporter of goods, but it has substantially deindustrialised and become a services sector. So, it will want to do something more on the services sector which we should allow because we are competitive in services, we should allow them to come in. But again, if somebody comes into the services with a GCC, it will not involve very much investment. It will certainly generate revenue. It will help generate skills. It will be skilling of the Indian workforce. There will be exports involved, but do not expect very heavy investment. It does not take a lot of heavy investment to start an R&D centre into artificial intelligence. So that is the kind of thing the British may be investing in India. ADVERTISEMENT India is one of the biggest investors in the UK. The Tata Group is the largest single employer in the private sector in the entire United Kingdom. I mean, it has TCS, it has Jaguar, and it has its steel plant out there and those together are a massive amount of investment, a massive amount of jobs. Will that trend increase? Yes, it could increase. But as I said, that is now fundamentally a services economy. It is no longer a large-scale producer of merchandise. So, can Indian companies like TCS which are already well established increase their footprint? Yes, I should think so, especially now that there is this freedom in terms of social security deductions. Earlier, if an IT worker went there, a significant part of his salary was cut saying this is a social security contribution although he would never get it back as a pension in his old age. Now that that is being waived for three years, we will be able to send lots more people for up to three years and this should induce much more Indian investment in the IT sector there. I hope that happens. It looks promising. Of course, the other thing is that will there be more Indian writers for Financial Times and The Economist or more Indian footballers going into the Premier League, some of these areas and of course, there is the stock market. I mean, Britain is a highly financialised market with a huge stock market. It already has a significant number of Indian names that are already well known. I imagine that number could go up. How many of them would retain a close connection with India? I am not sure. But you could hope that a significant number of people go there and they improve their skills, send home remittances, and later on perhaps come back and open businesses here, so that is what we look forward to, something happening two-way and on this frankly I see more scope for Indian investment in the UK than the other way around. (You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel)


Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
There is more scope for Indian investment in the UK than the other way around: Swaminathan Aiyar
Live Events You Might Also Like: India-UK trade deal not historic but should help Indian workers in UK: Swaminathan Aiyar You Might Also Like: Be Ready to Export: India-UK FTA is a transformational leap (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel , Consulting Editor, ET Now, says India stands as a prominent investor in the UK, with the Tata Group leading as the largest private sector employer. Enhanced by relaxed social security deductions for IT workers, increased Indian investment in the UK's IT sector appears promising. Opportunities also exist for Indian professionals in finance, media, and sports, potentially fostering a beneficial two-way exchange of skills and government is anxious to emphasise that there will be job creation in artisanal, labour-intensive sectors like leather or textiles or auto ancillaries. I would just say that in the long run, we need to look away from the labour-intensive field. Our comparative advantage is in skills. We are very competitive in skills. We are not competitive on labour costs for there are a large number of issues on the labour side. It includes the very large number of holidays we have in India compared with anybody else, and relatively short hours of work. Because of all this, I do not think India has a great advantage in the labour-intensive sector which the government claims it wants to promote as our labour laws do not really promote that. So that is the real problem, our own labour laws, not the trade barriers in Europe, not the trade barriers in the UK. And we would have to do something about auto ancillaries, we can certainly have a move up. The British car industry has disappeared in terms of British names, but the multinationals of the world are there, certainly the Japanese and Korean companies and we can export there and hopefully at some point of time, we will even be able to export to Jaguar which is very high-end in terms of the auto parts, but Tata owns it. We are not competitive in large cars, but we are definitely competitive in small countries in Europe, and in England, small cars are preferable, whereas in the USA, it is large cars. Small cars are preferable because of very high prices of petrol and because of a lack of parking spaces. Americans have huge parking spaces for their large cars. Britain and Europe are much more constrained by space. So, our small car exports should have a chance of rising significantly. It will also depend of course on what happens to the tariffs of various rivals. Malaysia, Thailand, China, all of these are competitors in small car areas. So, I am not sure what will happen out there, but if we have a good deal, if we have a very low tariff regime and they do not, that will clearly give us a benefit in the are a number of issues. As far as investment is concerned, will this help mutual investment? Will this help Indian investment in the UK? Will it help British investment in India? I am not sure to what extent it will boost British investment in India. The reason is that Britain hardly produces many goods anymore. It used to be a large exporter of goods, but it has substantially deindustrialised and become a services sector. So, it will want to do something more on the services sector which we should allow because we are competitive in services, we should allow them to come again, if somebody comes into the services with a GCC, it will not involve very much investment. It will certainly generate revenue. It will help generate skills. It will be skilling of the Indian workforce. There will be exports involved, but do not expect very heavy investment. It does not take a lot of heavy investment to start an R&D centre into artificial intelligence. So that is the kind of thing the British may be investing in is one of the biggest investors in the UK. The Tata Group is the largest single employer in the private sector in the entire United Kingdom. I mean, it has TCS, it has Jaguar, and it has its steel plant out there and those together are a massive amount of investment, a massive amount of jobs. Will that trend increase? Yes, it could increase. But as I said, that is now fundamentally a services economy. It is no longer a large-scale producer of can Indian companies like TCS which are already well established increase their footprint? Yes, I should think so, especially now that there is this freedom in terms of social security deductions. Earlier, if an IT worker went there, a significant part of his salary was cut saying this is a social security contribution although he would never get it back as a pension in his old age. Now that that is being waived for three years, we will be able to send lots more people for up to three years and this should induce much more Indian investment in the IT sector there.I hope that happens. It looks promising. Of course, the other thing is that will there be more Indian writers for Financial Times and The Economist or more Indian footballers going into the Premier League, some of these areas and of course, there is the stock market. I mean, Britain is a highly financialised market with a huge stock market. It already has a significant number of Indian names that are already well known. I imagine that number could go up. How many of them would retain a close connection with India? I am not sure. But you could hope that a significant number of people go there and they improve their skills, send home remittances , and later on perhaps come back and open businesses here, so that is what we look forward to, something happening two-way and on this frankly I see more scope for Indian investment in the UK than the other way around.