Technology

Irish-born entrepreneur Mike Lynch to learn verdict of $5bn fraud suit

Decision could have an impact on whether he’s sent to the US to face criminal charges

Mike Lynch is facing US extradition to face fraud charges related to a HP deal. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Tue Jan 18 2022 - 12:43

Irish-born entrepreneur Mike Lynch will finally learn the verdict of a $5 billion (€4.4 billion) fraud suit some two years after the trial ended, in a decision that could have an impact on whether he's sent to the US to face criminal charges.

A London judge said he would circulate a draft of his long-awaited civil ruling in the case brought by Hewlett-Packard Enterprise as soon as this week, a lawyer for Mr Lynch said in court on Tuesday. It would then be made public two to three weeks after that, he said.

Mr Lynch has been awaiting the ruling for more than two years following one of the longest and most expensive civil trials that the UK courts have ever seen.

He argues that the ruling would be crucial to his separate fight with the US over extradition to face fraud charges stemming from the $11 billion sale of his software firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard.

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Mr Lynch, who personally made more than $800 million from the HP deal, was “the leader of a corporate conspiracy”, the US alleged. He was arrested in February 2020 and has been on bail ever since. Lynch denies the charges.

US authorities have accused Mr Lynch of being involved in a multibillion dollar fraud in America over the sale of Autonomy for $11 billion (€9.7 billion), which resulted in “colossal financial losses” for Hewlett-Packard.

The technology giant claimed Mr Lynch “committed a deliberate fraud over a sustained period of time” to artificially inflate value of the business, which specialised in software to sort through large data sets. That, it says, forced it to announce an $8.8 billion (€7 billion) writedown of the firm’s worth just over a year after its acquisition.

Mr Lynch argued Hewlett-Packard was trying to make him “a scapegoat for their failures”. He denies all charges against him. – Bloomberg/PA

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