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The boatbuilder who assembled Mike Lynch’s doomed Bayesian yacht has fired their lawyers, after court papers suggested they planned on suing his widow for damages.
It was reported on Saturday that a lawyer for the Italian Sea Group (TISG) had lodged papers in a Sicilian court, arguing that the sinking of the superyacht, which killed seven people, may have caused reputational damage and loss of earnings to the value of £186m. The move was criticised by a family friend, saying it showed a “lack of decency”, with the investigation into the sinking still in the preliminary stages.
However, the firm hit back at the report over the weekend, adding that “no legal representative of the company has examined, signed or authorised any writ of summons”.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the company told The Independent that they had “terminated” their relationship with the lawyer involved and denied they were seeking legal damages.
The company said: “The Italian Sea Group S.p.A. (“TISG”) clarifies to have instructed its lawyers - who on September 20, 2024 had filed at the Termini Imerese Court the writ of summons mentioned in the news in recent days - to withdraw the said summons on 21 September, 2024, at 2.01 pm by certified email. TISG informs that it has therefore terminated all their engagements.”
News of the legal action first appeared in the Italian newspaper La Nazione on Friday.
The papers had reportedly named the Bayesian’s captain James Cutfield, two other crew members, the yacht management company Camper & Nicholsons, and Revtom, the Isle of Man company that owned the superyacht. Angela Bacares, Mr Lynch’s wife who survived the sinking, is listed as Revtom’s sole shareholder.
Within hours of the boat sinking on 19 August, the TSIG’S chief executive Giovanni Constantino blamed the crew, claiming the ship was “unsinkable”.
He told the media: “I imagine the crew is going through the worst moment of their lives. However, something in the way they handled the situation did not work. There was a chain of human errors.”
Mr Lynch, a British tech tycoon who founded the company Autonomy, died alongside his 18-year-old daughter Hannah when the boat sank during a freak weather incident in the early hours of the morning.
Five others were also killed, including Morgan Stanley chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judith, Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, and the boat’s chef Recardo Thomas.
Rescue workers saved 15 other passengers and crew members, including Ms Bacares, several of whom were treated at a Sicilian hospital.
Italian prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into the sinking, with the captain, the ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton and sailor Matthew Griffith under investigation.
