A lawyer for the shipbuilder who assembled Mike Lynch’s ill-fated superyacht that sank last month, killing him and six others including his 18-year-old daughter, has filed a lawsuit seeking £186m from his widow and crew.
Seven people died when the Bayesian, a £30m superyacht owned by the founder of Darktrace, sank in just 16 minutes last month after being hit by a violent gust off Porticello, Sicily.
Mr Lynch, 59, and his 18-year-old daughter were killed along with Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judith, New York lawyer Chris Morvillo and his partner Neda and chef Recaldo Thomas.
The legal action, filed in a Sicilian court on Friday and first reported by Italian newspaper La Nazione, claims the sinking caused massive reputational damage and loss of revenue to manufacturer Italian Sea Group (IGS).
While the “disgraceful” move is said to have angered Lynch’s family, IGS said the lawyer who filed the suit, Tommaso Bertuccelli, was “not authorized” to do so and has been told to withdraw it immediately.
An IGS lawyer is suing Angela Bacares (pictured, left) and the crew of the Bayesian for £186m
A photo provided on August 19, 2024 by the Perini Navi Press Office shows the ‘Bayesiano’ sailing boat, in Palermo, Sicily, Italy.
Seven people died after the sinking of the Bayesiano on August 19
Mike Lynch (pictured right) died tragically along with his daughter Hannah (pictured left)
The company states: “The Italian Sea Group… strongly denies the claims published in La Nazione about legal action following the Bayesian tragedy. Although TISG has given a generic mandate to the lawyers named in the article, no legal representative of the company has examined, signed or authorized any summons.”
The court documents reportedly name the ship’s captain, James Cutfield, two other crew members, Camper & Nicholsons, the yacht management company that hired the crew, and Revtom, the Isle of Man company that owns the Bayesian, controlled by Lynch’s widow, Angela Bacares, who survived the sinking at Porticello.
A source close to the family told the Times: “Italian Sea Group should be ashamed.[IGS chief executive]Giovanni Costantino is a disgrace, desperately trying to deflect blame. He rushed to speak to the media before all the bodies had been recovered, demonstrating his lack of decency. Now, it seems he wants to sue his own clients.”
MailOnline has contacted Tommaso Bertuccelli for comment.
The lawsuit comes less than a month after Italian prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into the sinking.
“We are only in the initial phase of the investigation. We cannot rule out any kind of development for the moment,” said the prosecutor of Termini Imerese, Ambrogio Cartosio.
Divers searching the wreckage of the yacht last month found that all six victims of the disaster whose bodies were recovered from the yacht had no water in their lungs, suggesting the cause of death was asphyxiation due to lack of oxygen.
Before his death at age 59, Mike had been embroiled in a transatlantic fraud case, resulting from the 2011 sale of his technology group, Autonomy, in which the buyer, HPE, alleged that “accounting irregularities” had led Lynch and his associates to fraudulently inflate the price.
Hannah was due to attend Oxford University before her life was tragically cut short.
The ship’s captain, 51-year-old New Zealander Cutfield, is among three people under investigation by judicial authorities following last month’s tragedy.
Chief Engineer Tim Parker Eaton, 56, and Matthew Griffiths, 22, are both British and, like the captain, are also under investigation for their alleged involvement in the deaths of the seven people on board the Bayesian.
Mr Parker Eaton, 56, told prosecutors he followed procedures and made sure everything was waterproof when the storm engulfed the yacht.
According to excerpts from Parker Eaton’s statement, leaked to Italian media, he insisted that all doors and openings on the yacht were closed.
The other two crew members have not commented publicly so far.
The bodies of the seven dead were repatriated from Sicily.
Autopsies have been carried out on the victims in Sicily in recent days and preliminary results suggest all but one were trapped below deck when they died.
Autopsies carried out on the victims at Palermo’s Policlinico hospital earlier this month revealed they had no water in their lungs, Italian media reported, raising fears they may have been conscious when the yacht sank.
Although their bodies have now returned home, doctors in Palermo are still investigating whether their deaths were caused by drowning or a lack of oxygen in the cabin.