Mike Lynch, a British tech entrepreneur, has been extradited to the United States to face criminal allegations related to the $11 billion sale of his company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard.
Dr. Lynch, sometimes called “Britain’s Bill Gates” after the Microsoft co-founder, will be tried on fraud allegations, which he denies.
He is accused of overvaluing his software company when he sold it to HP in 2011.
Thursday, the Home Office verified that Dr. Lynch had been extradited to the United States.
The billionaire industrialist, a founding investor in Darktrace, has long defied US prosecutors’ attempts to try him in the US.
According to court documents in the United States, Dr. Lynch has been ordered to post bail in the amount of $100 million, with authorities claiming he poses a “serious risk of flight” after years of fighting extradition.
He will be confined to a San Francisco address and guarded by private security that he must pay for.
A court filing stated, “After lengthy extradition proceedings in the United Kingdom, Defendant Michael Richard Lynch has finally landed on our shores to stand trial, accompanied by the United States Marshals Service.”
Dr. Lynch lost an appeal to the High Court arguing that he should be tried in the UK last month.
The Home Office stated, “The High Court denied Dr. Lynch’s request to appeal his extradition on April 21. Therefore, the typical statutory deadline of 28 days to surrender to the United States applies.”
Therefore, he was transferred to California on Thursday, where the trial will occur.
At the time of the transaction in 2011, Autonomy was the largest software company in the United Kingdom, and the acquisition was the largest ever of a British technology company.
The acquisition of Autonomy was intended to diversify HP’s business, as it was predominantly known as a technology hardware manufacturer.
HP knocked down Autonomy’s worth by $8.8 billion a year later, claiming it was tricked into overpaying for the company.
Since then, HP, Dr. Lynch, and Sushovan Hussain, the former chief financial officer of Autonomy, have been embroiled in litigation.
For 16 fraud, securities fraud, and other crimes, Mr. Hussain was imprisoned for five years and fined millions in 2019.
