The recovery of the superyacht of British tech entrepreneur Dr Mike Lynch has restarted after a diver was tragically killed last week.

Bayesian, a superyacht owned by the Lynch family, had capsized and sunk in the early hours of Monday 19 August 2024, off the coast of Sicily during a freak storm, which claimed the lives of seven of the 22 people onboard.

All onboard had all been celebrating Dr Lynch’s acquittal in a US criminal trial.

Rescue divers eventually discovered six bodies within the wreck itself, including 59 year old Dr Lynch and his 18-year old daughter Hannah; Jonathan Bloomer, non-executive chairman of Morgan Stanley International and his wife Judy Bloomer; Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance who represented Lynch and his wife Neda Morvillo.

Diver death

Recovery efforts of the sunken superyacht have now restarted after a diver, 39-year-old Dutch national, Rob Cornelis Maria Huijben, who had worked for a specialist salvage company, died underwater at the site located offshore at Porticello, Sicily.

The diver reportedly died while doing preparation work to cut the ship’s very tall mainmast.

The Guardian noted that a preliminary examination of the diver’s body revealed no visible injuries or burns. Investigators reportedly believe he may have suffered a medical problem while submerged.

However an alternative line of inquiry is that after divers used a blowtorch to cut the vessel’s boom, Huijben was struck by dislodged debris.

Now recovery efforts of the superyacht have restarted, and the first major piece of Bayesian has been raised, namely the boom and anchor.

It is reported that the raising of the hull of the doomed vessel will begin in June.

The exact cause of the sinking of Bayesian is still under official investigation.

Legal case

Meanwhile the legal case involving Hewlett-Packard (now HPE) seeking damages from the estate of Dr Lynch continues, after a legal stalemate has been resolved.

At the time of Lynch’s death, Hewlett-Packard was pursing a $4bn (£2.95bn) claim in potential damages against him.

A US trial against Lynch had stemmed from Hewlett-Packard’s disastrous $11 billion (£8.7bn) acquisition of Autonomy in 2011. The acquisition resulted in bitter mud slinging after HP filed an $8.8bn write-down of Autonomy in 2012.

HP alleged at the time that the majority of that charge, more than $5 billion, had resulted from a number of practices allegedly used by former members of Autonomy’s management team to inflate the value of the company and mislead investors and potential buyers at the time of the acquisition.

In the end, Lynch was acquitted of criminal fraud charges in the US, but he lost a 2022 civil case in the UK, which could have left him liable for up to $4 billion in damages.

Pursuing damages

Fortune.com has reported that Mr Justice Hildyard, who oversaw that 2022 civil case, had postponed a judgement on a damages figure in the wake of Lynch’s death in August 2024.

At the time of his 2022 judgment, Hildyard said the final settlement would be considerably lower than the $4 billion figure pursued by HPE.

The legal stalemate had reportedly emerged after that the executors of Lynch’s Will, which included his widow Angela Bacares, Autonomy co-founder Richard Gaunt, and its former chief operating officer Andrew Kantar, had at varying points renounced their roles, citing the need to await a judgement on damages to assess their solvency.

That reportedly created what Travers Smith, the law firm representing HPE, described as a “circularity problem.”

According to Fortune.com, no one was willing to represent Lynch’s estate until a settlement was agreed to determine its solvency, but no judgement could be granted until an executor was willing to represent the estate.

To break that impasse, Hildyard appointed the retired, former Clifford Chance lawyer, Jeremy Sandelson, as an independent third-party legal representative for Lynch’s estate.

The Sunday Times Rich List has reported that Dr Lynch’s assets were worth around £473m ($633m), much of it in Bacares’s name.

There has been speculation that HPE would abandon its case against Lynch, owing to the potential for negative PR from pursuing Lynch’s grieving widow, Bacares, for damages.

However a HPE spokesperson confirmed to Fortune.com that the group would see the case through to its conclusion of a settlement, adding a reminder of its fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of shareholders, a point reiterated by HPE chief executive, Antonio Neri.