British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was trying to bounce back from HP fraud case before being lost at sea

AP Technology Writer

Tech tycoon Mike Lynch, one of six people missing from a sunken yacht off Sicily, had been trying to move past a Silicon Valley debacle that had tarnished his legacy as an icon of British ingenuity. The 59-year-old Lynch struck gold when he sold Autonomy, a software maker that he founded in 1996, to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion. But the deal quickly turned into an albatross for him after he was accused of cooking the books to make the sale. The fraud allegations resulted in a criminal trial the culminated in Lynch’s acquittal in June, but he sill faced damages in a civil case that HP mostly won.