UK-based software company, Autonomy’s co-founder Mike Lynch has been extradited to the United States to face criminal charges regarding the sale of his software company to HP.
He has been charged with 17 cases over Hewlett Packard's (HP) $11 billion acquisition of Autonomy.
On May 11, Lynch has been extradited, said Britain's interior ministry. He arrived in San Francisco on a commercial flight accompanied by U.S. Marshals, court documents show.
After appearing in court, a judge ordered Lynch to pay a $100 million bond, hand over his passport and to be placed under 24 hour guard to secure his release.
Lynch, 57, who has always denied any wrongdoing, could face 20 years in prison.
In 2011, Lynch sold his start-up to HP for $11.7 billion. Within a year, HP wrote down the value of Autonomy by $8.8 billion and later brought a civil lawsuit in London against Lynch and Autonomy’s former chief financial officer Sushovan Hussain.
In January 2022, a British judge said that Lynch had framed a fraud to inflate the value of Autonomy, and the judge ruled in favour of HP.
Meanwhile, the U.S. had brought criminal charges against Lynch for wire fraud and securities fraud.
He fought extradition proceedings but on April 21, Britain's High Court refused him permission to appeal.
Lynch pleaded not guilty to 17 counts in court in the U.S. on Thursday, court documents show, and a status conference will be held on May 19 to set a date for the trial. His wealth was estimated at $450 million by the U.S. courts.
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