Stephen Chamberlain: Mike Lynch fraud co-defendant dies

The former vice president of the finance company Autonomy was hit by a car while out running in Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning (August 17), his lawyer said.

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

This was for allegedly scheming to inflate the value of Autonomy, then Britain's largest software firm, before it was sold to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011, Sky News reports.

Mike Lynch’s co-defendant in US fraud trial ‘fatally struck’ by car while jogging | Guardian https://t.co/2wD8F6bZ0W Stephen Chamberlain was VP of finance for Autonomy, the firm co-founded by British tech tycoon missing in Sicily pic.twitter.com/iENKORo1PI

— Venik (@venik44) August 20, 2024

The pair were acquitted of all 15 charges by a jury in San Francisco in June.

At the weekend Cambridgeshire police had appealed for witnesses and information after a man in his 50s was taken to hospital with serious injuries.

In a statement on Monday (August 19), Mr 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 in Stretham.

This news came just before Mr Lynch and his daughter Hannah were discovered to be missing after a superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily on Monday.

British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter are among six tourists missing after a luxury yacht sank in a tornado off the coast of Italy.

Sky Correspondent @ashnahurynag reports. https://t.co/Hq2LCftAeJ pic.twitter.com/KgKe6Ge6dn

— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 20, 2024

Additionally, Morgan Stanley International Bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo are among the group of six missing.

The 56m Bayesian was carrying 22 people including Brits, Americans and Canadians, BBC News reports.

Fifteen people were rescued, including a one-year-old British girl. Sicily's Civil Protection also confirmed that the body of the ship's cook was recovered.

Recommended reading:

• Who is Mike Lynch? British technology tycoon missing after yacht sinks

Who was Stephen Chamberlain?

Stephen Chamberlain worked as Autonomy's vice president of finance until he left in 2012 to work as chief operating officer for cybersecurity firm Darktrace.

He also volunteered as a finance director for Cambridge United, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The sale of Autonomy was the biggest tech takeover of a FTSE 100 firm at the time - but HP wrote down £5.5bn of the company's value within a year, claiming revenue streams were inflated.