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Autonomy founder Mike Lynch extradited to U.S. on fraud charges

British tech tycoon Mike Lynch has been extradited to the United States to face criminal fraud charges in the $11 billion sale of his firm to Hewlett Packard. Photo courtesy The Royal Society/Wikimedia Commons

May 12 (UPI) -- Mike Lynch, a tech tycoon dubbed "Britain's Bill Gates" has been extradited to the United States to face criminal charges related to the $11 billion sale of his company Autonomy to Hewlett Packard.

The British Home Office confirmed that Lynch, 57, was extradited to the United States on Thursday as he arrived in San Francisco where he will be held on house arrest and guarded by private security he must foot the bill for himself.

Britain's High Court rejected Lynch's appeal of extradition on April 21, as the United States set his bail at $100 million, deeming him a "serious risk of flight."

"The bail set by the U.S. court is by U.K. standards extraordinarily high and is a clear example of the differing approaches of the U.S. and U.K. when it comes to prosecuting allegations of white collar crime," Thomas Garner, extradition partner at law firm Fladgate told CNBC.

Lynch was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2018 for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and thirteen counts of wire fraud.

He faces up to 20 years in prison on the U.S. charges after having been found liable for billions of dollars by a British judge in Hewlett Packard's civil lawsuit against him in January 2022.

Hewlett Packard asserted that Lynch had overvalued Autonomy by $700 million. HP wrote down the value of Autonomy by $8.8 billion a year after it bought the company.

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According to the U.S. grand jury indictment, Lynch and former Autonomy Vice President for Finance Stephen Keith Chamberlain engaged in a scheme to defraud buyers and sellers of Autonomy securities, including Hewlett Packard.

They allegedly made misrepresentations about their business and its financial condition, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office Northern District of California.

"Autonomy issued materially false and misleading quarterly and annual financial statements which the defendants allegedly provided to HP during the time that HP was considering whether to purchase Autonomy," Federal prosecutors said.