Mike Lynch, former chief government officer of Autonomy Corp departs the Rolls Constructing on June 27, 2019 in London, England.
Dan Kitwood | Getty Pictures
LONDON — British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch has been extradited to the U.S. to face fraud prices in relation to the sale of his software program firm Autonomy to Hewlett Packard.
Lynch arrived within the U.S. on Thursday afternoon and is presently detained in San Francisco till bail situations are met, his spokesperson confirmed to CNBC. He face prices of securities and wire fraud in relation to the sale of his firm Autonomy to HP for $11 billion.
The entrepreneur attended an arraignment listening to on Thursday and was ordered to pay a $100 million bail to be launched on home arrest, the spokesperson mentioned. It isn’t but clear whether or not Lynch intends to pay the bond.
“The bail set by the U.S. court docket is by U.Ok. requirements terribly excessive and is a transparent instance of the differing approaches of the U.S. and U.Ok. relating to prosecuting allegations of white collar crime,” Thomas Garner, extradition associate at legislation agency Fladgate, advised CNBC by way of electronic mail.
It comes after Lynch misplaced a Excessive Court docket battle to enchantment extradition final month.
Lynch, 57, bought his software program start-up Autonomy to HP in 2011 for $11.7 billion, immediately making him one of many wealthiest and most celebrated tech founders within the U.Ok.
A 12 months later, HP introduced an $8.8 billion write-down on the corporate, claiming that “accounting irregularities” led it to pay an excessive amount of for Autonomy, which bought knowledge analytics software program to companies.
HP’s foremost accusation is that Autonomy’s execs inflated the corporate’s revenues by round $700 million. The corporate sued Autonomy for $5 billion. Lynch counter-sued, resulting in a posh authorized battle that has been rumbling on for a decade.
In January final 12 months, then-U.Ok. Inside Minister Priti Patel permitted Lynch’s extradition to the U.S., after a British decide dominated in favor of HP in a civil case towards Lynch over claims that he plotted to inflate the worth of Autonomy earlier than it was purchased by HP.
Lynch is not the primary Autonomy worker to face prices within the U.S. In Could 2019, former CFO Sushovan Hussain was charged with fraud and and sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment.
Some within the U.Ok. tech trade imagine that Lynch mustn’t have been extradited. In February, quite a lot of entrepreneurs, together with Made.com co-founder Brent Hoberman, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak complaining about America’s “unreasonable” use of an extradition treaty to deport the expertise entrepreneur.
“Is it the best factor {that a} U.Ok. businessman working beneath U.Ok. legal guidelines is extradited to the U.S.? I do not imagine it’s, and I do not assume different enterprise folks will assume so both,” Hoberman beforehand advised The Sunday Instances newspaper in an interview.
After writing off three quarters of Autonomy’s worth, HP bought what was left of the corporate to British agency Micro Focus in September 2016 as a part of an $8.8 billion deal that concerned different HP enterprise items.