Priti Patel orders extradition of tech billionaire Mike Lynch

Priti Patel has requested the British tech billionaire Mike Lynch to be extradited to the US to confront prison fraud expenses more than the $11bn (£8.2bn) sale of his software package enterprise Autonomy.

The Property Secretary accredited a ruling that Mr Lynch should show up in a US court to deal with promises that he illegally inflated the former FTSE 100 company’s sale to Hewlett Packard in 2011.

A Home Office environment spokesman said: “On January 28, next consideration by the courts, the extradition of Michael Lynch to the US was purchased.”

Chris Morvillo of Clifford Chance, Mr Lynch’s law firm, mentioned that Mr Lynch “firmly denies the fees introduced towards him in the US and will proceed to combat to set up his innocence”. 

“He is a British citizen who ran a British organization in Britain subject to British laws and principles and that is where by the subject should really be solved. This is not the conclude of the struggle — significantly from it,” he mentioned. 

Mr Morvillo added that Mr Lynch will now file an enchantment to the Large Court in London.

The House Office buy arrived just several hours after Mr Lynch misplaced a $5bn Substantial Court docket fraud scenario over the sale, in a defeat that discounts a blow to his prospects of correctly interesting the extradition purchase.

A decide mentioned HP had “substantially succeeded” in its fraud circumstance against Mr Lynch and his former main economic officer, Sushovan Hussain, declaring the pair had been “dishonest” and “obsessed” with propping up Autonomy’s share value.

The US has billed Mr Lynch with 17 counts of fraud over Autonomy’s sale, professing he illegally exaggerated revenues in advance of the offer. Mr Hussain has been identified responsible of fraud in the US and is serving a 5-12 months prison sentence. 

Both have denied the promises and Mr Lynch is battling extradition.

Last calendar year, a choose claimed that Mr Lynch ought to be sent to the US and gave Ms Patel two months to approve the purchase. But the Home Business office experienced continuously delayed a conclusion, indicating it desired to see the result of the civil circumstance.

Hewlett Packard, now known as HPE, sued Mr Lynch and Mr Hussain in London in 2015 in what grew to become Britain’s most important fraud trial.

Mr Justice Hildyard, providing a summary of his prolonged-awaited judgment yesterday, mentioned that Mr Lynch experienced engaged in “contrived” specials with “no business substance” to mislead traders, auditors and the company’s individual administrators about Autonomy’s overall performance.