London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Sunday, Aug 31, 2025

British businessman Mike Lynch faces extradition to US

British businessman Mike Lynch faces extradition to US

Priti Patel will have final say on whether Autonomy founder will stand trial for fraud in America
The British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch should be extradited to the US to face criminal fraud charges, a London judge has ruled.

Michael Snow, district judge at Westminster magistrates court, on Thursday refused Lynch’s attempt to block his extradition to the US to face 17 counts including wire fraud and securities fraud related to the 2011 sale of his technology firm, Autonomy.

The judgment will go to the home secretary, Priti Patel, who will have the final say on whether Lynch will be extradited.

The judge asked Lynch, 56, to stand before delivering his verdict. Lynch said, “Yes, I do”, when asked if he understood his bail conditions. The judge said he will be readmitted to bail, and he will have 14 days to appeal against the home secretary’s final decision.

The decision is likely to revive concerns over the power of US authorities to demand the extradition of British citizens. David Davis, a former Conservative minister and shadow home secretary, on Thursday described it as an “outrage” on social media.

Davis wrote: “A judge sitting in a British court has decided to send a British businessman into the hands of the US courts at the say so of American prosecutors.”

The judgment is the latest twist in Lynch’s long-running legal battles over the disastrous takeover of Autonomy by America’s Hewlett-Packard.

Autonomy was hailed as a UK success story as it built a business using complicated pattern recognition technology to sift through unstructured but potentially valuable data. Lynch was made an adviser to 10 Downing Street, and seen by some as a British version of Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

Hewlett-Packard paid $11bn (£8bn) for Autonomy as part of the US company’s effort to pivot away from hardware such as office printers towards software. However, the deal quickly turned into a disaster, and the company wrote off $8.8bn in late 2012.

Hewlett-Packard’s successor companies have since sued Lynch in a £3.8bn civil fraud trial, saying he inflated the value of Autonomy before the sale. The trial ended in January 2020, after months of testimony ranging from dry accounting details to at times lurid evidence on the deal from Lynch and former HP executives including Meg Whitman.

The civil judgment was initially expected as early as the past spring, but the judge, Mr Justice Hildyard, has indicated that he does not expect to circulate a draft until 24 September at the earliest.

Lynch was first charged by the US Department of Justice in November 2018. In an indictment, the US said Lynch and other former Autonomy executives “engaged in a fraudulent scheme to deceive purchasers and sellers of Autonomy securities”. The executives did this to “enrich themselves and others through bonuses, salaries, and options”, the indictment alleged. Lynch submitted himself for arrest in February 2020.

Autonomy’s former chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, was in 2019 jailed for five years, after a US jury found him guilty of fraud related to the sale.

Lynch denies any wrongdoing in both the civil and criminal cases.

The first extradition hearing was held in February 2021, but his lawyers successfully persuaded the judge to delay for what was expected to be a few weeks for the civil judgment.

Lynch’s counsel, Alex Bailin QC, on Thursday tried to argue for a further delay to the extradition hearing in order to await the judgment in the civil case. Bailin said the judgment in the civil case was relevant to the criminal case.

However, the judge agreed with the counsel for the US government, Mark Summers QC, that further delay was not in “the interests of justice”. He said the judge in the civil case faced an “unenviable and formidable task” in sifting through the evidence, but said the judgment in the British civil case would be “of very limited relevance” to a decision on criminal charges in the US.

Lynch’s lawyer, Christopher Morvillo of Clifford Chance, said: “Dr Lynch is disappointed that the court has ruled against him without waiting for the high court’s judgment in the civil case that examined all these issues. Dr Lynch denies the charges against him.

“At the request of the US Department of Justice, the court has ruled that a British citizen who ran a British company listed on the London Stock Exchange should be extradited to the US over allegations about his conduct in the UK. We say this case belongs in the UK. If the home secretary nonetheless decides to order extradition, Dr Lynch intends to appeal.”

The extradition judgment is also likely to worry shareholders in Darktrace, the recently listed cybersecurity company. Darktrace, which was worth £5bn on Thursday, received seed investment from Lynch’s investment vehicle, and it listed its formerly close relationship with Lynch as a key risk during its April listing. Its chief executive, Poppy Gustafsson, is a former Autonomy employee.

Darktrace declined to comment.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Corporate America Cuts Middle Management as Bosses Take On Triple the Workload
Parents Sue OpenAI After Teen’s Death, Alleging ChatGPT Encouraged Suicide
Amazon Faces Lawsuit Over 'Buy' Label on Digital Streaming Content
Federal Reserve Independence Questioned Amid Trump’s Push to Reshape Central Bank
British Politics Faces Tumultuous Autumn After Summer of Rebellions and Rising Farage Momentum
US Appeals Court Rules Against Most Trump-Era Tariffs
UK Sought Broad Access to Apple Users’ Data, Court Filing Reveals
UK Bank Shares Dive Over Potential Tax on Sector
Germany’s Auto Industry Sheds 51,500 Jobs in First Half of 2025 Amid Deepening Crisis
Bruce Willis Relocated Due to Advanced Dementia
French and Korean Nuclear Majors Clash As EU Launches Foreign Subsidy Probe
EU Stands Firm on Digital Rules as Trump Warns of Retaliation
Getting Ready for the 3rd Time in Its History, Germany Approves Voluntary Military Service for Teenagers
Argentine President Javier Milei Evacuated After Stones Thrown During Campaign Event
Denmark Confronts U.S. Diplomat Over Covert Trump-Linked Influence in Greenland
Starmer Should Back Away from ECHR, Says Jack Straw
Trump Demands RICO Charges Against George Soros and Son for Funding Violent Protests
Taylor Swift Announces Engagement to NFL Star Travis Kelce
France May Need IMF Bailout, Warns Finance Minister
Chinese AI Chipmaker Cambricon Posts Record Profit as Beijing Pushes Pivot from Nvidia
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
Ukraine Finally Allows Young Men Aged Eighteen to Twenty-Two to Leave the Country
The Porn Remains, Privacy Disappears: How Britain Broke the Internet in Ten Days
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Welcome to The Definition of Insanity: Germany Edition
Just a reminder, this is Michael Jackson's daughter, Paris.
Spotify’s Strange Move: The Feature Nobody Asked For – Returns
Manhunt in Australia: Armed Anti-Government Suspect Kills Police Officers Sent to Arrest Him
China Launches World’s Most Powerful Neutrino Detector
How Beijing-Linked Networks Shape Elections in New York City
Ukrainian Refugee Iryna Zarutska Fled War To US, Stabbed To Death
Elon Musk Sues Apple and OpenAI Over Alleged App Store Monopoly
2 Australian Police Shot Dead In Encounter In Rural Victoria State
Vietnam Evacuates Hundreds of Thousands as Typhoon Kajiki Strikes; China’s Sanya Shuts Down
UK Government Delays Decision on China’s Proposed London Embassy Amid Concerns Over Redacted Plans
A 150-Year Tradition to Be Abolished? Uproar Over the Popular Central Park Attraction
A new faith called Robotheism claims artificial intelligence isn’t just smart but actually God itself
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner Purchases Third Property Amid Housing Tax Reforms Debate
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Italian Facebook Group Sharing Intimate Images Without Consent Shut Down Amid Police Investigation
Dutch Foreign Minister Resigns Amid Deadlock Over Israel Sanctions
Trump and Allies Send Messages of Support to Ukraine on Independence Day Amid Ongoing Conflict
China Reels as Telegram Chat Group Shares Hidden-Camera Footage of Women and Children
Sam Nicoresti becomes first transgender comedian to win Edinburgh Comedy Award
Builders uncover historic human remains in Lancashire house renovation
Australia Wants to Tax Your Empty Bedrooms
MotoGP Cameraman Narrowly Avoids Pedro Acosta Crash at Hungarian Grand Prix
FBI Investigates John Bolton Over Classified Documents in High-Profile Raids
Report reveals OpenAI pitched national ChatGPT Plus subscription to UK ministers
×