The builder of the doomed superyacht Bayesian is understood to be suing the widow of Mike Lynch for almost £400 million in a Sicilian court, claiming the company’s sales collapsed following the disaster.
The Italian Sea Group (TISG) claimed the crew and Bayesian’s holding company were responsible for the sinking, which had caused TISG to lose millions of euros in sales as a consequence of being blamed for the tragedy, according to The Daily Telegraph.
A receptionist at TISG’s headquarters in Marina di Carrara, Tuscany, said that no one was available to respond to questions on the case on Wednesday evening.
The wreckage of Bayesian was raised from the sea off Sicily
TMC MARINE/PA
Lynch, a technology entrepreneur, died alongside his 18-year-old daughter Hannah and five other victims when Bayesian capsized during a freak storm off the coast of Sicily in August 2024. Angela Bacares, his wife, was among the survivors and is the legal owner of Revtom, the Isle of Man entity that owned the yacht.
TISG, which is majority-owned by Giovanni Costantino, an Italian yachting millionaire, claimed that the crew’s incompetence and negligence led the boat to capsize and sink. The lawsuit, which was filed in the town of Termini Imerese, said Bayesian was “unsinkable” but that the crew failed to shut hatches, heed weather warnings and lower the vessel’s keel, leading it to capsize in strong winds.
A source close to the Lynch family told the Telegraph: “This claim is as cynical as it is predictable. The UK investigation has raised serious, unresolved questions about the yacht’s design, stability and operating characteristics, including vulnerabilities unknown to the owner and crew.
“This action appears designed to distract from those issues but it will not prevent proper scrutiny of how the vessel was designed, approved and built. It is desperate, opportunistic and in bad faith.”
Giovanni Costantino owns TISG
The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch last year found the superyacht had “vulnerabilities” the crew were unaware of, including instability caused by it having one of the world’s tallest masts.
The suit is against Revtom as well as James Cutfield, the boat’s skipper, and two crew members, Timothy Eaton and Matthew Griffiths.
• Mike Lynch’s widow ‘felt safe’ on yacht minutes before it sank
TISG caused consternation in September 2024 when lawyers acting for the company filed a suit against Bacares only to have the papers and their mandate withdrawn.
When news of the filing broke, TISG distanced itself from the initiative, claiming it had “given a generic mandate” to the lawyers but insisting that “no legal representative of the company has examined, signed or authorised any writ of summons”. It later added: “The documents relating to the summons have already been physically withdrawn.”