Mike Lynch’s co-defendant in US trial dies in accident

Chamberlain faced the same charges of fraud and conspiracy as his former boss

• Pramod Thomas
• 20 August, 2024

By: Pramod Thomas

STEPHEN CHAMBERLAIN, once Mike Lynch’s co-defendant in the US fraud trial over the sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard, has died after a road accident left him critically injured, days before Lynch went missing off the coast of Sicily, his lawyer said.

Chamberlain – Autonomy’s former vice president of finance alongside chief executive Lynch – was hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday (17) morning and had been placed on life support, a person familiar with the matter said earlier on Monday (19).

In a statement, Chamberlain’s lawyer, Gary Lincenberg, who described him as a “dear client and friend”, said he had died after being “fatally struck” by a car while out running.

Lynch was one of six people reported missing after a luxury yacht was struck by an unexpectedly violent storm and sank off Sicily early on Monday.

Chamberlain faced the same charges of fraud and conspiracy as his former boss for allegedly scheming to inflate the value of Autonomy, then Britain’s largest software firm, before it was sold.

Both the men were acquitted of all 15 charges by a jury in San Francisco in June.

After leaving Autonomy in 2012, Chamberlain worked as chief operating officer for cybersecurity firm Darktrace and volunteered as a finance director for Cambridge United soccer club, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“He was a courageous man with unparalleled integrity, and we deeply miss him,” Lincenberg said. “He fought successfully to clear his good name, which lives on through his wonderful family.”

Cambridgeshire Police appealed for witnesses after a collision between a pedestrian and a car in Newmarket Road in Stretham, Cambridgeshire, saying a man in his 50s had been taken to hospital with serious injuries.

A police spokesperson said on Monday there was no update on the pedestrian’s condition.

Divers seek Lynch and Morgan Stanley chief

Divers scoured the wreck of the luxury yacht off Sicily’s coast on Tuesday (20) to find six missing people, including Lynch and a Morgan Stanley executive.

The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long (184-ft) superyacht, was carrying 22 people and anchored off the port of Porticello when it was hit by the fierce, pre-dawn storm.

Fifteen people escaped before it capsized and the body of one person who died was swiftly recovered. That left six passengers unaccounted for – Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer, Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo, and their wives.

The Bayesian was owned by Lynch’s wife, who survived the disaster. The only body so far retrieved was that of the onboard chef Ricardo Thomas, an Antiguan citizen.

The British government’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch said it sent four of its inspectors to Sicily to conduct a “preliminary assessment.”

(Reuters)