Sign up to create alerts for Instruments,
Economic Events and content by followed authors
Free Sign Up Already have an account? Sign In
Quotes
All Instrument Types
- All Instrument Types
- Indices
- Equities
- ETFs
- Funds
- Commodities
- Currencies
- Crypto
- Bonds
- Certificates
Please try another search
💎 Reveal Undervalued Stocks Hiding in Any Market Get Started
Autonomy founder Lynch fights extradition to US on fraud charges
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: British entrepreneur Mike Lynch leaves the High Court in London, Britain March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
By Sam Tobin
LONDON (Reuters) - Tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch asked a London court to block his extradition to the United States to face criminal charges over Hewlett Packard's $11 billion acquisition of his software company Autonomy, arguing he should be prosecuted in Britain.
Lynch – the co-founder of Autonomy, who was once hailed as Britain's answer to Bill Gates – faces 17 charges over the 2011 takeover, which was one of Britain's biggest tech deals. Lynch denies any wrongdoing.
HP (NYSE:HPQ) wrote down the value of Autonomy by $8.8 billion within a year of the deal and brought a civil lawsuit in London against Lynch and Autonomy’s former chief financial officer Sushovan Hussain.
The Silicon Valley company "substantially succeeded" in its lawsuit, a judge said in January 2022, though any damages will be "considerably less" than the $5 billion sought by HP.
Britain's interior ministry on the same day ordered Lynch's extradition to the United States.
His lawyers told London's High Court on Wednesday that Lynch should be prosecuted in Britain, where the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has reserved the right to prosecute him if he is not extradited.
Alex Bailin, representing Lynch, who sat at the back of the court, said Autonomy was a British company which was listed in London and that the "overwhelming majority" of the events on which the U.S. had based criminal charges took place in Britain.
Lawyers representing the U.S. government argued in court filings there was no reason to block Lynch's extradition, saying the SFO has ceded jurisdiction to U.S. prosecutors.
Bailin also gave updated details of HP's civil lawsuit against Lynch and Hussain, who was jailed in a San Francisco court for five years in 2019.
Lynch intends to apply for permission to appeal against the ruling on HP's lawsuit, Bailin said in court filings.
Bailin added that the issue of any appeal has been delayed until after the amount of damages to be paid to HP has been determined, which he said "remains completely unresolved".
Related Articles
Add Chart to Comment
Confirm Block
Are you sure you want to block %USER_NAME%?
By doing so, you and %USER_NAME% will not be able to see any of each other's Investing.com's posts.
%USER_NAME% was successfully added to your Block List
Since you’ve just unblocked this person, you must wait 48 hours before renewing the block.
Report this comment
I feel that this comment is:
Comment flagged
Thank You!
Your report has been sent to our moderators for review
Add a Comment
We encourage you to use comments to engage with other users, share your perspective and ask questions of authors and each other. However, in order to maintain the high level of discourse we’ve all come to value and expect, please keep the following criteria in mind:
Enrich the conversation, don’t trash it.
Stay focused and on track. Only post material that’s relevant to the topic being discussed.
Be respectful. Even negative opinions can be framed positively and diplomatically. Avoid profanity, slander or personal attacks directed at an author or another user. Racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination will not be tolerated.
Perpetrators of spam or abuse will be deleted from the site and prohibited from future registration at Investing.com’s discretion.