LONDON, Might 12 (Reuters) – Mike Lynch, co-founder of UK software program agency Autonomy, has been extradited to america to face prison fees in a close to decade-long authorized battle and fall from grace for a person as soon as hailed as Britain’s reply to Invoice Gates.
Lynch faces 17 fees over Hewlett Packard’s (HP) $11 billion acquisition of Autonomy, the corporate he grew into Britain’s main tech firm, earlier than it spectacularly unravelled after being purchased by HP in 2011.
Britain’s inside ministry stated on Friday that Lynch was extradited on Might 11.
He arrived in San Francisco on a business flight accompanied by U.S. Marshals, court docket paperwork present.
Showing in court docket on Thursday, Lynch was ordered by a decide to pay a $100 million bond, hand over his passport and to be positioned underneath 24 hour guard to safe his launch.
Lynch, 57, who has all the time denied any wrongdoing, might face 20 years in jail.
As soon as lauded by lecturers, scientists and politicians for organising a software program big from his ground-breaking analysis at Cambridge College, he has spent the final decade preventing lawsuits associated to the HP takeover.
The deal rapidly soured. Inside a yr, HP wrote down the worth of Autonomy by $8.8 billion and later introduced a civil lawsuit in London in opposition to Lynch and Autonomy’s former chief monetary officer Sushovan Hussain.
Within the lawsuit, a British decide dominated in January 2022 that Lynch had masterminded an elaborate fraud to inflate the worth of Autonomy, which means the Silicon Valley firm considerably succeeded in its civil case.
Lynch had stated HP didn’t know what it was doing with Autonomy, and was out of its depth in understanding his know-how.
In the meantime, the U.S. had introduced prison fees in opposition to Lynch for wire fraud and securities fraud.
He fought extradition proceedings however on April 21, Britain’s Excessive Court docket refused him permission to attraction. His attorneys had argued that he must be prosecuted in Britain.
“America’ authorized overreach into the UK is a menace to the rights of all British residents and the sovereignty of the UK,” Lynch stated in April when his attraction was rejected.
His spokesperson declined to touch upon Friday.
Lynch pleaded not responsible to 17 counts in court docket within the U.S. on Thursday, court docket paperwork present, and a standing convention might be held on Might 19 to set a date for the trial. His wealth was estimated at $450 million by the U.S. courts.
In 2019, Lynch’s former colleague, Hussain, was convicted of fraud in america and sentenced to 5 years in jail.
Lynch’s excessive profile authorized battles have additionally raised questions for Darktrace (DARK.L), a FTSE 250 British cyber safety firm. Lynch was central to its creation and he and his spouse Angela Bacares personal about 10% of the two billion pound firm, based on Refinitiv information.
Darktrace stated in February Lynch performed no half in operating it and was not on its board.
Reporting by Sarah Younger; Modifying by Kate Holton
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