This story is being updated as we receive new information.
Autonomy founder Mike Lynch is missing after his superyacht sunk off the coast of Sicily. Among the six other missing people are Clifford Chance partner Christopher Morvillo, and his wife Neda. It is understood that that Lynch was hosting a party to celebrate his recent acquittal on fraud charges in the US, and had invited guests from his legal team at Clifford Chance as well as his own company Invoke Capital. Clifford Chance commercial litigation senior associate Ayla Ronald is among the 15 people to have been rescued after the boat sank in a tornado.
Lynch has been described as Britain’s Bill Gates, having in 1996 co-founded global software giant Autonomy, a spin off from computer finger print recognition firm Cambridge Neurodynamics. He served as Autonomy’s CEO for over fifteen years, during which time it became one of the UK’s most successful technology companies listed on the FTSE 100, acquiring companies including email archiving and litigation support company Zantaz for $375m, Interwoven (now iManage) for $606m and eDiscovery provider Iron Mountain Digital for $380m.
Lynch is also the founder of Invoke Capital Partners, a machine learning and artificial intelligence investment and advisory company, which founded contract review company Luminance and seed funded cybersecurity company Darktrace. In 2017 he spoke at the GlenLegal conference about how AI will disrupt the legal sector.
For the past decade Lynch has faced charges surrounding the sale of Autonomy to HP in 2011, and in just the last few weeks was acquitted of fraud charges in the United States, where he was found not guilty on all 15 counts of fraud over the $11.1bn sale.
A spokesperson for Clifford Chance said:
“We are in shock and deeply saddened by this tragic incident. Our thoughts are with our Partner, Christopher Morvillo, and his wife Neda who are among the missing. Our utmost priority is providing support to the family as well as our colleague Ayla Ronald, who together with her partner, thankfully survived the incident. Our thoughts extend to the other passengers and crew and all those affected. We have no further comment at this time. We, and the families, ask that their request for privacy is honored during this period.”
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