30-07-2025
Conall Patton on acting for Hewlett Packard against Mike Lynch
Conall Patton KC of One Essex Court chambers was lead counsel for Hewlett Packard Enterprise in its claim against Mike Lynch, the technology entrepreneur who died last year when his yacht sank off the coast of Sicily. In one of the UK's biggest corporate fraud cases, the High Court has awarded Hewlett Packard £730 million in damages after a 2022 ruling that Lynch defrauded the company in its £8.7 billion acquisition of his business, Autonomy, in 2011. The award is set to wipe out Lynch's estate.
Mastering the complex expert evidence on valuation — well over a thousand pages. This went to the heart of what Autonomy would have been worth, absent any fraud.
Taking on cases through Advocate, the Bar's pro bono charity. Securing compensation for an individual on the brink of losing his home was as rewarding as any high-profile case. Despite being in the right, without legal representation he would probably have lost.
Pippa Rogerson [a law professor at the University of Cambridge], who combines a high-flying career as a legal academic with intense pastoral concern for the success of her students. I would not have come to the Bar without her encouragement.
See a vocal coach — days in court had left me sounding hoarse and raspy. A strong, clear voice is an essential tool of the trade.
En route to the Supreme Court, my trousers split down the seam. Fortunately, it was a robed hearing and my gown spared my blushes.
The best: exposing a witness as untruthful through sustained cross-examination. The worst: the knot in my stomach just before a new trial begins.
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