Missing tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s co-defendant in $11B fraud trial fatally struck by car just days before billionaire’s yacht tragedy
Missing UK tech billionaire Mike Lynch’s associate Stephen Chamberlain, who stood trial for fraud alongside him after the sale of software company Autonomy, died just days before the entrepreneur vanished in a shipwreck off the coast of Sicily.
Chamberlain was out for a run in Cambridgeshire, England, on Saturday when he was struck by a vehicle and died after being rushed to a nearby hospital.
Chamberlain and Lynch, who remains missing after a yacht he was on with his wife and 18-year-old daughter sank Monday, were co-defendants in the decade-long fraud case that arose after the $11 billion sale to Hewlett-Packard.
Both men were acquitted last June.
Lynch’s wife, Angela Baceres, was rescued soon after the vessel went down after a major storm, but the British tech magnate — sometimes referred to as “the Bill Gates of the UK” — and his daughter, Hannah, are among six missing passengers who have yet to be found. The missing include four British nationals and two Americans.
What to know after a tornado sank the yacht Bayesian off the coast of Sicily:
- A superyacht capsized off the coast of Sicily after a tornado hit the area early Monday, killing seven passengers.
- British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was identified as one of the bodies pulled from the wreckage. His teenage daughter, Hannah, was the final one to be recovered.
- Lynch — known as “Britain’s Bill Gates” — had invited guests from Clifford Chance, a legal firm that represented him, and Invoke Capital, his own company, on the voyage, according to the Telegraph.
- Security camera footage shot from 650 feet from where the Bayesian sank Monday shows it disappearing.
- A rare and unexpected “black swan” weather event may have led to the Bayesian’s speedy demise, maritime experts say.
In a statement, Chamberlain’s family described him as, “an amazing individual whose only goal in life was to help others in any way possible.”
His lawyer, Gary Licenberg, who defended him in the long-running San Francisco fraud case, called his client a “courageous man” who “fought successfully to clear his good name at trial earlier this year.”
Chamberlain, 52, had been the vice president of finance at Autonomy, the sale of which prompted HP to sue Lynch and his colleagues, claiming they overstated the value of the company by billions.
HP wound up taking an $8.8 billion writedown a year after the purchase, later blaming “accounting irregularities” for overpaying for the purchase.
