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Mike Lynch: UK extradition treaty doesn't rely on any facts
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2 hours ago
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* Mike Lynch fraud trial
Mike Lynch leaves High Court in London 25 March 2019image copyright
Reuters
The founder of UK software firm Autonomy can be extradited to the US
to face charges of conspiracy and fraud, a London court has said.
Mike Lynch sold Autonomy to US computer giant Hewlett Packard (HP)
for $11bn in 2011.
He denies allegations that he fraudulently inflated the value of
Autonomy before the sale.
His lawyer, Chris Morvillo of Clifford Chance, said Dr Lynch was
disappointed by the ruling and would appeal.
Dr Lynch has been facing civil charges at the High Court in London,
where HP is suing him for damages over the deal. But separately, the
US Department of Justice (DoJ) is pursuing criminal charges against
him.
Judge Michael Snow said he would deliver his ruling in that action
without awaiting the civil verdict, saying it was "of limited
significance in the case". Dr Lynch was released on bail by the judge
in London.
* Autonomy ex-finance boss sentenced to jail
* Autonomy boss in 'deliberate fraud'
Dr Lynch told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that the decision was not
unexpected, because of the terms of the extradition treaty the UK has
with the US.
"We have this imbalance and this default extradition treaty which can
be used [in] any dispute that's going on with American companies and
their interests."
"The insanity of this extradition treaty [is that] it doesn't rely on
any facts," he said.
Dr Lynch added that he felt the extradition treaty was "imbalanced"
and that the British public did not realise that the US justice
system works entirely differently to the UK's.
He said it was "particularly egregious" that the DoJ was not waiting
to see the full judgement from the UK High Court, which will be due
in nine weeks' time.
He claimed his former chief financial officer Sushovan Hussain, who
was jailed for five years in 2019, did not receive a fair trial. Dr
Lynch said no defence witnesses turned up to Mr Hussain's trial
because they were told they would be arrested if they entered the US.
His lawyer Mr Morvillo said: "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
America 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."
'Artificially inflated'
The UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigated the deal in 2013,
before dropping the case two years later because of "insufficient
evidence".
Autonomy was founded by Dr Lynch in 1996. It developed software that
could extract useful information from "unstructured" sources of data
such as phone-calls, emails or video, and then do things such as
suggest answers to a call-centre operator or monitor TV channels for
words or subjects.
Before it was bought by HP, it had headquarters in San Francisco and
Cambridge in the UK.
In 2010, about 68% of Autonomy's reported revenues came from the US
and elsewhere in the Americas.
HP and US prosecutors allege that Dr Lynch and other former Autonomy
executives artificially inflated the software company's revenues and
earnings between 2009 and 2011, causing HP to overpay for the firm.
But Dr Lynch has argued that HP used the allegations to cover up its
own mismanagement of Autonomy after the 2011 deal.
"I don't think that we did anything wrong at Autonomy, but let me
remind you that HP, of its own free will, decided to pay 70% more for
Autonomy than its price on the London stock market," he told Radio 4.
"It was an astronomical amount of money, but it was their choice -
not ours."
Dr Lynch is also critical of the SFO for failing to clear him: "The
SFO has had a lot of criticism for not getting the guilty, but in my
case, they've also failed to clear the innocent. They've
investigated, found nothing wrong, and yet have basically sat there.
"It's important to defend the innocent companies in our country when
they are subject to judicial overreach from countries that are
looking after their own interests."
Related Topics
* Mike Lynch fraud trial
* HP Inc
* HP Autonomy
* Companies
More on this story
*
UK tech giant founder arrested over US extradition
Published
5 February 2020
*
Autonomy ex-finance boss sentenced to jail
Published
13 May 2019
*
Autonomy boss in 'deliberate fraud'
Published
25 March 2019
*
UK's biggest fraud trial gets under way
Published
25 March 2019
*
US to probe Autonomy sale to HP
Published
27 December 2012
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