Britain approves extradition of Mike Lynch after tech tycoon loses court fight with HP
Mr Lynch and his finance director used a variety of tactics that artificially inflated reported sales, the London High Court said in its ruling
Home Secretary Priti Patel on Friday approved the extradition of Autonomy founder Mike Lynch to the United States to face criminal fraud charges after the tech tycoon lost a $5 billion (about £3.7 billion) court battle with HP over Autonomy.
Lynch faces charges of conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud related to the sale of his company Autonomy to HP in 2011.
"Under the Extradition Act 2003, the secretary of state must sign an extradition order if there are no grounds to prohibit the order being made," a Home Office spokesperson told BBC in a statement.
"Extradition requests are only sent to the home secretary once a judge decides it can proceed after considering various aspects of the case. On 28 January, following consideration by the courts, the extradition of Dr Michael Lynch to the US was ordered."
Kelwin Nicholls, Lynch's lawyer and a partner at law firm Clifford Chance, said that his client "firmly denies the charges" and will "continue to fight to establish his innocence" in the case.
"He is a British citizen who ran a British company in Britain subject to British laws and rules and that is where the matter should be resolved."
Mr Nicholls added that Lynch would appeal the court ruling as well as the extradition order in the UK's High Court.
The 57-year-old Lynch, along with Autonomy's former chief financial officer Sushovan Hussain, is fighting a $5 billion civil complaint, brought by HP Enterprise in London's High Court.
Lynch founded Autonomy in 1996 and sold it to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011 for $11 billion.
Just months later, HP wrote down Autonomy's value by $8.8 billon, claiming that Lynch and former CFO Sushovan Hussain had inflated Autonomy revenues to make the company look more valuable than it actually was.
Lynch rejected the allegations against him, stressing that HP was trying to "shift the blame" for its mismanagement of Autonomy, and for wildly overpaying for the company in the first place. He also argued that Deloitte, the auditor for Autonomy before HP's acquisition, had found no issues in the company's financial statements.
Mike Lynch faces 17 charges, including wire fraud and conspiracy, in the US over the sale of Autonomy to HP.
In May 2019, a US jury sentenced Hussain to five years in jail and $4 million fine after finding him guilty of conspiracy, wire fraud and securities fraud. He was also ordered to forfeit $6.1 million.
In November 2019, the US Department of Justice asked the UK government to allow the extradition of Mike Lynch to face trial in a US court. The request was reiterated in December by the US Embassy in London.
In its ruling [pdf] on Friday - following a nine-month trial - the UK's High Court said that HP had largely succeeded in showing that Autonomy executives had falsely inflated the firm's declared revenue, earnings and valuation.
Mr Justice Hildyard said in a summary of his judgement that Lynch and his finance director Hussain had been "dishonest" and used a variety of tactics that artificially inflated reported sales. They concealed the sale of hardware and engaged in complex reselling schemes to mask a deficit in sales of Autonomy's software, according to the judge.
While HP had claimed damages of $5 billion in the case, the judge said that the final amount is likely to be considerably less. He added that calculating damages would take time, although he had not wanted to delay his decision on Lynch's liability as it might have affected his extradition to the US.