The British government announced on Friday that he was accused of fraud worth billions.
By Le Figaro with AFP
Published 05/12/2023 at 11:15 am, Updated 05/12/2023 at 11:24 am
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RMT (Rail, Marine and Transport Workers Union) Secretary General Mick Lynch on 14 January 2023 in London, UK. JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP
British businessman Mike Lynch was “extradited to the United States” on Thursday, May 11, where he will face trial in a multi-billion dollar fraud case related to the sale of Autonomy software to the HP group, the British newspaper said government on Friday.
“Following a lengthy extradition process in the UK, the defendant Michael Richard Lynch has finally arrived on our territory to be tried,” add documents registered with federal court for the Northern District of California and dated Thursday and attached Friday AFP have been received.
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“Significant risk of escape”
These documents also indicate that Mike Lynch is required to post $100 million bail in order to be released because he poses a “serious risk of absconding.” He must reside in or near San Francisco and be guarded by a security company at all times. The terms of bail described in the document must be established. A spokesman for Mike Lynch, contacted by AFP, declined to comment.
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Mike Lynch lost an appeal in British courts against his extradition to the United States on April 21. He is accused of a multi-billion dollar fraud in the sale of the British software manufacturer Autonomy to the American group Hewlett Packard (HP) for more than 11 billion dollars in 2011. The procedure has a civil component in the UK. United as and a criminal component in the United States. In this context, the British government had signed an extradition order for Mr. Lynch in January 2022.
Accused of tampering with his accounts
A year after the transaction in question, HP had accused Autonomy of manipulating its accounts after HP discovered what the American group described as “significant accounting irregularities.” HP blamed former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch and former CFO Sushovan Hussain, among others, for artificially inflating the company’s reported sales, revenue growth and margins.
The American group then spent nearly $9 billion on write-downs, more than $5 billion of which were the result of accounting manipulations carried out within Autonomy prior to the transaction. HP asked the High Court of Justice in London for a refund of this $5 billion to the two ex-bosses of Autonomy. Sushovan Hussain has already been sentenced to prison and imprisoned in the United States.