THE technology entrepreneur loses his near decade-long battle against extradition
DR Michael Lynch (57), the former CEO of IT firm Autonomy and an acknowledged technology innovator and entrepreneur, has been extradited to the US to face criminal charges over the $11bn sale of his software company to Hewlett-Packard. He is accused of inflating the value of the firm when he sold it to HP in 2011, and faces 17 charges over the American company’s acquisition of Autonomy.
Dr Lynch fought extradition proceedings for close to ten years, but at the end of April the British High Court refused him permission to appeal their decision, and he was extradited last week after the lengthy legal battle
The case in California is listed as ‘The United States of America v. Michael Richard Lynch, case number 3:18-cr-00577-CRB, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California’.
Dr Lynch arrived at San Francisco Airport on a commercial flight accompanied by US marshals.
He has now been ordered by the US court to pay a bond of $100million (in effect bail) and hand over his passport — authorities have labelled him a "serious risk of flight" following his long battle against extradition.
A court filing said: "After lengthy extradition proceedings in the United Kingdom, Defendant Michael Richard Lynch has finally landed on our shores to stand trial, accompanied by the United States Marshals Service.”
He will be confined to an address in San Francisco, and put under 24-hour surveillance by private security which he must pay for himself
Estimates of Dr Lynch's net worth vary, but the upper level is often cited as high as £1.1billion.
Dr Lynch has denied any wrongdoing, but if found guilty in the US he could face up to 20 years in jail.
Michael Lynch was born to Irish parents. They moved from Carrick-on-Suir in Tipperary to Essex, where the young Mike was brought up. His mother was a nurse, his father a fireman. Michael was subsequently educated at Cambridge and gained a doctorate in electrical engineering.
Michael Lynch has been awarded an OBE for services to enterprise, and has served on the boards of both the British Library and the BBC. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, one of the most prestigious scientific institutes in the world. His entry reads: “Fuelled by a scientific background in signal processing and pattern recognition, Michael Lynch’s entrepreneurship has allowed him to successfully make the leap from academia to business. Notably, Michael co-founded Autonomy in Cambridge in 1996 — the UK’s largest software company until acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011.”
