The Italian Sea Group sues Mike Lynch’s widow after Bayesian sinking
Bayesian photographed in Milazzo Harbor; Sicily. before the accident. Image courtesy of Sfische via Wikimedia.
The Italian Sea Group has reportedly launched legal action in Sicily, seeking almost £400m from the widow of the British technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch, arguing that it suffered severe commercial damage after the sinking of the superyacht Bayesian.
Court papers filed by the Italian shipbuilder seek €456m in damages and name Angela Bacares Lynch, along with the yacht’s captain and two crew members, as defendants. Bacares Lynch survived the incident and is the legal owner of Revtom, the Isle of Man–registered company that owned the vessel. The case was lodged in Termini Imerese, close to the location off the Sicilian coast where the yacht capsized.
Bayesian sank during a violent storm in August 2024, killing seven people, including Mike Lynch and his teenage daughter, Hannah. The yacht – once described by its builders as “basically unsinkable” – had been built in 2008 under the Perini Navi brand, which The Italian Sea Group acquired out of bankruptcy in 2021, along with its archives and real estate.
Mike Lynch, founder of the Cambridge-based software company Autonomy, had recently been acquitted of US fraud charges and was on board with family and friends at the time of the disaster.
The Italian Sea Group alleges that the loss of the yacht was caused by a series of failures by those operating it. In its claim, the company says the crew did not close hatches, failed to respond adequately to weather alerts and did not deploy the vessel’s keel, leading to the yacht capsizing in strong winds.
The filing describes Bayesian as “unsinkable” and argues that responsibility lies with the crew and with Revtom, which it says is liable for their actions. The defendants include the captain, James Cutfield, and crew members Timothy Eaton and Matthew Griffiths. Italian prosecutors have previously confirmed that crew members are under criminal investigation.
‘No Perini-branded yachts sold since the sinking’
The shipbuilder maintains that it has been wrongly blamed for the tragedy and that the resulting scrutiny has negatively impacted its business. It claims to have lost hundreds of millions of euros in revenue, suffered a sharp fall in its share price and seen the value of the Perini Navi brand collapse. According to the company, planned yacht sales worth close to €1bn by 2028 have failed to materialise and no Perini-branded yachts have been sold since the sinking. It also says interest from brokers and prospective buyers has dried up entirely.
A source close to the Lynch family rejected the claim, telling the Telegraph: “This claim is as cynical as it is predictable. The UK investigation has raised serious, unresolved questions about the yacht’s design, stability and operating characteristics, including vulnerabilities unknown to the owner and crew. This action appears designed to distract from those issues, but it will not prevent proper scrutiny of how the vessel was designed, approved and built. It is desperate, opportunistic and in bad faith.”
Those comments reflect findings from the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch, which reported last year that the yacht had “vulnerabilities” of which the crew were not aware, including issues linked to its unusually tall mast. The shipbuilder’s position is that the design was sound.
The Italian Sea Group, which is majority-owned by the Italian entrepreneur Giovanni Costantino, has not commented publicly on the reported lawsuit.
The company has previously taken legal action against media organisations, including a lawsuit against The New York Times following reporting that questioned the yacht’s design.
The case follows confusion in September 2024, when legal papers were briefly filed against Bacares Lynch and then withdrawn. At the time, the company said its lawyers had acted on a general mandate without proper authorisation and stated that the documents had been physically pulled.
Separately, Lynch’s estate is facing substantial financial pressure from civil proceedings in the UK, where Hewlett-Packard is pursuing damages of around £1.5bn relating to its acquisition of Autonomy in 2011 for £7bn.
