Tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, who became known in Britain as ‘British Bill Gates’, has been extradited to the US where he will face charges in connection with the sale of his software company, Autonomy. , to multinational Hewlett-Packard in 2011 (HP) more than 11,000 million dollars (over 10,000 million euros).

The businessman will arrive in the United States yesterday, the UK Home Office confirmed to BBC UK, after a month ago the UK Supreme Court rejected his appeal. Lynch was accused by US authorities of more than a dozen charges, including fraud in transactions by inflating the value of a software company, something the businessman has always denied.

“On April 21, the Supreme Court denied Lynch permission to appeal his extradition. As a result, the normal 28-day deadline for surrender to the United States applies,” the Home Office said.

The British businessman faces up to 25 years in prison if he is ultimately found guilty. Sushovan Hussain, the former CFO of Autonomy, is currently serving a five-year sentence in the US after being found guilty of fraud in 2019.

Upon his arrival in the United States, Lynch, 57, attended an impeachment hearing where bail of $100 million (91.4 million euros) was placed on him for release under house arrest, a spokesman for the defendants told CNBC.

“The bail set by US courts is extremely high by British standards and is a clear example of the different approaches from the US and UK when it comes to prosecuting white-collar criminal offenses charges,” Thomas Garner, extradition partner at law firm Fladgate, told the broadcaster.

In January last year, the UK Supreme Court found Hewlett Packard Enterprise “substantial” in its civil lawsuit that Michael Richard Lynch, founder of Autonomy, and Sushovan Tareque Hussain, the company’s chief financial officer, committed fraud that prompted the American company to acquire the British company in 2011 for 11.1 billion dollars.

Following the sentence, then British Home Secretary Priti Patel approved Lynch’s extradition to the US.

HP suffered a multi-million dollar loss in the 2012 financial year after registering an $8,800 million (8,045 million euro) depreciation in respect of “serious accounting misstatements, information failures and outright distortions” in Autonomy Corporation.

In this case, the US multinational subsequently informed the UK Serious Fraud Office and the US Department of Justice, as well as the Securities Markets Commission (SEC) of “accounting errors, defaults and misrepresentations” at Autonomy prior to and in connection with your purchase.

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