UK Software Company Co-Founder Extradited to US

Improve the News Foundation -

Facts

  • Mike Lynch, co-founder of software firm Autonomy — and once called the "UK’s Bill Gates" — arrived in San Francisco, Calif. after being extradited to the US Thursday where he will face criminal charges related to Hewlett Packard’s (HP) $11B acquisition of his tech company.1
  • Upon arriving in the US accompanied by the US Marshals Service, Lynch was released from court on a $100M bond on the condition that he be confined in a specific San Francisco location and pay for a 24-hour security detail — “including video surveillance and armed guards.”2
  • Lynch has faced legal battles for nearly a decade and could face up to 20 years in prison for allegedly inflating Autonomy’s value, causing HP to pay far more than the company was worth when it bought Lynch’s software in 2011. He pled not guilty on 17 charges.3
  • A year after buying Autonomy for $11B, HP wrote down the company’s value by $8.8B, accusing Autonomy’s executives of inflating its revenues by roughly $700M. HP sued Autonomy for $5B, prompting a countersuit from Lynch and a decade-long legal dispute.4
  • In January 2022, a British judge ruled that Lynch did orchestrate a fraudulent scheme to inflate Autonomy’s value, vindicating HP, with Britain’s High Court rejecting his appeal of the extradition on April 21.5
  • In 2019, Autonomy’s former CFO Sushovan Hussain was sentenced to five years in prison and fined $5M for wire and securities fraud. Lynch has denied any wrongdoing, and some in the UK tech industry have rallied behind him claiming that he should not be extradited to the US.6

Sources: 1BBC News, 2Guardian 3Reuters, 4CNBC, 5Al Jazeera, and 6NBC 6 South Florida.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by The Telegraph. Mike Lynch’s extradition to the US sets a dangerous precedent that could pave the way for future injustice. The US and UK agreed to an extradition treaty in 2003 that would allow the allies to work together following the 9/11 attacks. Now that treaty is being misused and abused to apply to suspected white-collar criminals instead of the originally intended terrorists. The US is trying to supersede British law and is overstepping its bounds.
  • Narrative B, as provided by Guardian. Mike Lynch was once a promising tech entrepreneur who was lauded as one of the industry’s stars, but now he's being exposed as a fraud who tricked HP into overpaying billions for his company. Lynch has lost case after case and has evaded extradition for many years due to his wealth and influence. After a decade of legal battles, he can no longer run and must face the consequences of his actions. This is due process in action.