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British entrepreneur Mike Lynch is among those missing following the sinking of a superyacht off the coast of Sicily, multiple news outlets have reported. His wife, Angela Bacares, was rescued.
The ship, called “Bayesian”, sank in the early hours of Monday morning, carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew. The $14m boat was hit by a storm near Palermo. While one body was recovered, six people remain missing.
The majority of those on board were British, according to Sky News, which also reported that the boat was anchored when it was hit.
Lynch is a looming figure in British business as the former CEO of Autonomy Corporation, which he founded and grew in the mid-90s. Autonomy was purchased by Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) in 2011 — an $11bn deal which led to Lynch being accused of 15 counts of fraud on US turf.
HP eventually wrote down Autonomy’s value by $8.8bn after the company was accused of inflating sales and misleading investors.
Read more: What we know about Bayesian yacht tragedy as one dead and six missing
In June this year, he was cleared of all counts in San Francisco, after a 13-year legal tussle.
It was a notable victory, not only because the size of the original deal, but also because of the fact that in the US in fiscal year 2022, only 0.4% of federal criminal cases led to trial and acquittal, according to the Pew Research Center. Only 12% of all wire fraud prosecutions resulted in acquittal.
Ahead of the trial, Lynch was extradited to the US and put under house arrest and 24-hour surveillance.
Lynch, who was awarded an OBE for services to enterprise in 2006, was later an investor of the cybersecurity unicorn Darktrace (DARK.L). He also sat on the boards of the BBC and the British Library, founded Invoke Capital VC.
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