'Britain's Bill Gates' finally extradited to California to face charges in 'one of the largest frauds ever prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice'
The British technology tycoon Mike Lynch, once dubbed «Britain's Bill Gates», has been extradited to the US to face 17 criminal charges after a years-long fight. Lynch is the founder of the software company Autonomy, which was sold to Hewlett-Packard for $11bn in 2011. Lynch left Autonomy in 2012, and in the same year HP wrote down the value of the company by $8.8bn: The entrepreneur is accused of over-inflating the value of Autonomy in the period leading up to the sale, essentially cooking the books, and further accused of trying to obstruct the subsequent investigation into the matter.
The UK's Home Office confirmed to the BBC(opens in new tab) that Lynch was extradited to the US on Thursday, 11 May, which came after an April judgement that rejected his latest appeal (Lynch argued he should be tried in the UK). That judgement makes for some eye-popping reading, and begins by quoting the American prosecutors describing the case as «one of the largest frauds ever prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice.» The value of the alleged fraud runs into the billions of dollars and per the court document refusing Lynch's appeal(opens in new tab):
«The Applicant is accused of engaging in a conspiracy to provide dishonest financial and other information about Autonomy’s performance to the markets from 2009, and then to HP from about 2011 during the purchase negotiations, thereby dishonestly maintaining or inflating Autonomy’s share price, and hence, ultimately, the price which HP paid for it. The Applicant owned a substantial number of Autonomy’s shares, and so the alleged fraud benefitted him personally.»
Further charges include attempting to obstruct justice in subsequent investigations, and of money laundering in
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