Mike Lynch's grieving family will learn within weeks how much in damages they must pay after a multi-billion-pound claim brought by Hewlett-Packard, writes John-Paul Ford Rojas.

The US tech giant won a High Court claim against the tech tycoon in 2022 after accusing him of fraud over its 2011 purchase of his company Autonomy.

His death last summer - when his £30m Bayesian superyacht sank during a storm off the coast of Sicily - means his family will be liable for any damages decided by the judge.

A judicial office spokesman told the Daily Mail that the judgment was expected to be handed down some time during the current legal term which runs from April 29 to May 23.

Friends of Lynch, including UK Conservative MP David Davis, had previously called for Hewlett-Packard to drop the claim.

But the company said last September that it intended "to follow the proceedings through to their conclusion".

Lynch, 59, had only just been cleared in a separate US criminal trial over the Autonomy case when he and his daughter Hannah, 18, died when the Bayesian sank.

They were among seven who drowned after he invited a group of friends, family and associates on to the yacht to celebrate being cleared of fraud charges which could have seen him jailed for 20 years.

Now, his family, including widow Angela Bacares, 58, could be left with a mammoth legal bill relating to the Autonomy episode.

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) won its civil case over claims that Lynch and Autonomy's former finance chief Sushovan Hussain inflated the revenues of the Cambridge-based business before Hewlett-Packard's £8bn takeover.

The US firm initially sought £4bn but Mr Justice Hildyard ruled the amount would be "substantially less".

The judgment comes as efforts are under way to raise Lynch's superyacht in a £20m salvage operation.

Investigators are seeking to explain why the vessel sank in just 16 minutes in the freak storm last August.