Hewlett Packard Enterprise is seeking nearly $1.8 billion from the estate of the late Mike Lynch over HP’s acquisition of his British tech firm Autonomy, the U.S. technology giant’s lawyers told London’s High Court on Tuesday.

Hewlett Packard is seeking to recoup its losses from Lynch, who died last year when his luxury yacht sank off Sicily, over its 2011 acquisition of Autonomy for $11.1 billion.

The company accused Lynch and Autonomy’s former chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, of inflating the firm’s value before the takeover. HP wrote down Autonomy’s worth by $8.8 billion within a year of the purchase.

Court filings show HP is claiming $1.79 billion, including interest and after prior settlements.

Lawyers for Lynch’s estate are seeking permission to appeal a 2022 ruling that found Lynch liable, also arguing the $761 million HP seeks in interest is “an excessive sum”. They also said HP has filed a separate lawsuit asserting the “estate may be insolvent”.

A spokesperson for Lynch’s family said: “The core facts remain that HP’s claim was fundamentally flawed and a wild overstatement.”

HP viewed Autonomy, built on Lynch’s ground-breaking research at Cambridge University, as a transformational acquisition to move it from hardware to software.

But, after the deal soured, HP brought a $5 billion lawsuit against Lynch and Hussain in 2015. The High Court ruled in HP’s favour in 2022, although a judge said the company would receive “considerably less” than $5 billion.

The court ruled in June that HP suffered losses of nearly 698 million pounds – just over $1 billion at 2011 exchange rates – as it would have paid a lower price for Autonomy had it known its “true financial position”.

Lynch, once hailed as Britain’s answer to Bill Gates, maintained his innocence and blamed HP for failing to integrate Autonomy. He was cleared of related criminal charges in the United States in June.

Lynch, 59, died in August when his yacht sank off Sicily during a holiday to celebrate his acquittal. His 18-year-old daughter Hannah also died in the accident.

Google DeepMind said on Wednesday it is opening a new artificial intelligence research lab in Singapore that will focus on collaboration with governments, businesses, and academic institutions across Asia.

The AI unit owned by Alphabet said it had doubled its Asia-based team over the past year and already begun hiring for the lab.

Google DeepMind Chief Operating Officer Lila Ibrahim said the research lab was still deciding its research agenda, but would focus on education, healthcare, and science.

Executives told reporters that Southeast Asian markets had some of the highest AI adoption rates in the world.

Bitcoin briefly fell below $90,000 overnight as investors sell once high-flying assets like cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence stocks.

Bitcoin fell to around $89,500 early Tuesday, its first drop below $90,000 since April, before recovering to around $93,600 by late morning. The world’s most popular cryptocurrency had jumped near $125,000 in early October, driven in part by enthusiasm about a pro-crypto administration in Washington.

Companies tied to crypto have been caught in the downturn. Shares of Robinhood Markets, which have tripled this year on the strength of crypto trading, are down 21% so far in November. Crypto exchange Coinbase Global has fallen 23%.

The drop in crypto is part of a broader sell-off in global markets this month. The S&P 500 is down nearly 3%, as is Germany’s DAX, while the Nikkei in Japan is off 7%. Nvidia, the poster child for the frenzy around AI, has dropped 9%.

Lava will be launching its next flagship smartphone, Agni 4, tomorrow in India with an aim to get the mid-segment rolling for the homegrown brand which is focusing heavily on under-₹30K buyers.

Lava Agni 4, which succeeds the Agni 3 launched last year, will also give a glimpse of how Lava is going ahead with AI in their smartphones. Lava calls it VayuAI, which is expected to provide summaries, creation and editing functions to the users. Lava Agni 4 will also have a customisable Action Key for shortcuts.

Lava Agni 4 is going to use a 6.67-inch 1.5K flat AMOLED punch hole display. It is expected to be a 120 Hz panel with peak brightness likely to touch 3,000 nits. It will use a glass panel at the back, and features an aluminium chassis.

Lava Agni 4 will run on the MediaTek Dimensity 8350 processor with LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage. It might get up to 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage. It is likely to run the stock Android 15 out of the box. The phone will also have a VC liquid cooling system for thermal management.

Lava has not yet disclosed the battery capacity of Agni 4, but it is likely to remain at 5,000 mAh with a charging support of up to 60W.

Agni 4 hints to a dual rear camera setup that is expected to be a 50 MP main shooter along with an ultrawide sensor. A 50 MP selfie camera could be another surprise for the segment.

Lava has confirmed that Agni 4 will come in the Lunar Mist or Phantom Black colours. It will be an Amazon exclusive device for which the e-commerce portal has already created a microsite.

Lava Agni 4 is expected to come with a sub-30K price tag.

A U.S. judge dismissed the federal government’s antitrust lawsuit against Meta on Tuesday (November 18, 2025), ruling that the tech giant’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp did not constitute an illegal monopoly in social media.

The ruling delivered a major victory to Meta after a five-year battle that began when the U.S. agency filed suit claiming the company illegally maintained its monopoly by acquiring Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 to eliminate competitive threats.

Judge James Boasberg of the federal district court in Washington concluded that Meta faces sufficient competition from rivals TikTok and YouTube, preventing the company from exercising monopoly power in the social media market.

The FTC had argued that Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and minor player MeWe competed in a distinct market of connecting friends and family that was separate from video entertainment platforms like TikTok and YouTube.

The U.S. government argued that this hold on friends and family offered a unique ability to build out Meta products and rake in billions of dollars in profits every quarter.

But Judge Boasberg found that distinction no longer holds in today’s social media landscape.

“Meta holds no monopoly in the relevant market,” the judge declared, noting that Facebook and Instagram have transformed in recent years to primarily show users short videos recommended by algorithms — nearly identical to TikTok’s core offering.

The court cited data that Americans now spend only 17% of their time on Facebook viewing content from friends, with that figure dropping to just 7% on Instagram.

Instead, users predominantly watch “Reels” — short videos from strangers recommended by AI.

“Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube have thus evolved to have nearly identical main features,” Judge Boasberg wrote, citing evidence showing that users treat these platforms as substitutes.

Meta welcomed the judge’s recognition that the company “faces fierce competition” and said it looked forward to working with the Trump administration “and to invest in America.”

Ahead of the trial that began in April, Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg had made repeated visits to the White House as he tried to persuade President Donald Trump against allowing the FTC to fight the trial.

The trial did take place, with Mr. Zuckerberg and several top Meta executives brought to the stand.

‘Intense competition’

The ruling represents a setback for U.S. antitrust enforcers who have pursued aggressive action against Big Tech companies, with mixed results in court.

As part of that push, the U.S. government has launched five major cases against tech giants, including two against Google and suits against Apple and Amazon.

A different U.S. judge in September rejected a government bid to break up Google, after the search engine juggernaut was found to have acted as an illegal monopoly.

The judge in that case was swayed by similar arguments that Google’s hold on the search engine market was under threat by new actors — ChatGPT and other AI upstarts in Google’s case.

“Judge Boasberg correctly grasps how dynamic digital markets are,” said Vidushi Dyall of the Chamber of Progress, a big tech lobby.

“Even large tech companies still face intense competition and…new players have disrupted the position of incumbents,” Dyall wrote on X.