Mike Lynch: British entrepreneur loses bid against US extradition after sale of Autonomy to HP

UK entrepreneur Mike Lynch has lost a bid to block his extradition to the US where he faces criminal fraud charges.

A High Court in London heard the challenge after then-home secretary, Priti Patel, approved Dr Lynch’s extradition in January last year, to answer to 17 fraud charges over the sale of his software company, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.

HP acquired the company for $11.1bn billion (£8.3bn) more than a decade ago. Dr Lynch was then accused of deliberately overstating the value of his business before it was acquired by the American technology giant.

He has always denied any wrongdoing – having made $800m (£644m) from the deal – and argued after the extradition ruling that he was being made a “scapegoat” for mismanagement by HP.

On Friday, Lord Justice Lewis and Mr Justice Julian Knowles ruled that none of Dr Lynch’s grounds of appeal against the extradition ruling were “arguable”.

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“The applicant’s extradition has been sought… so that he can stand trial in California for fraud,” the two judges said in a written ruling.

“The American prosecutors have described 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.”

They said that the charges remain as allegations, and would need to be proved in the event of a trial.

A spokesman for Dr Lynch said: “Dr Lynch is very disappointed, but is reviewing the judgment and will continue to explore his options to appeal, including to the European Court of Human Rights.”

Dr Lynch lost a multibillion-dollar fraud action after HP sued him and Autonomy’s former chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, for about $5bn (£3.7 billion).

A High Court judge in January found that HP had “substantially” succeeded in its bitter civil case but indicated that the US firm would get considerably less than the amount it had sought in damages – the amount is yet to be decided.

In February, a group of entrepreneurs including Brent Hoberman, the co-founder of Lastminute.com, and FTSE-100 boardroom veterans such as Lord Stevenson of Coddenham, signed a letter to Rishi Sunak complaining about US authorities’ “unreasonable” use of an extradition treaty.

They described the action as “deeply worrying to anyone running a business in the UK”.