Mike Lynch loses High Court battle to avoid extradition to US

Mike Lynch, one of Cambridge’s most successful technology entrepreneurs, has lost the latest stage of a legal battle to avoid extradition to the US after being accused of fraud.

Mr Lynch had been accused by US authorities of being involved in a multibillion-dollar fraud in the US over the sale of his software company, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 for $11bn dollars (£8.5bn), which resulted in “colossal financial losses” for the US firm.

They claim he deliberately overstated the value of his business, which specialised in software to sort through large data sets.

In 2015 Hewlett-Packard sued Mr Lynch, and Autonomy’s former chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, for around $5bn (£3.8bn) over its purchase of Autonomy. The technology giant claimed Mr Lynch “committed a deliberate fraud over a sustained period of time” to artificially inflate Autonomy’s value, which it says forced it to announce an $8.8bn (£6.7bn) write-down of the firm’s worth just over a year after its acquisition. The fall-out since then has caused consternation.

Mr Lynch argued that Hewlett-Packard was trying to make him “a scapegoat for their failures”: he denies all charges against him. He had mounted a High Court challenge against a deadline set by a judge during extradition proceedings, but the judge, who considered his challenge at a recent hearing in London, ruled against him today (January 26).

Mr Justice Swift heard that a judge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court had rejected “various challenges” Mr Lynch had made against his extradition and ruled that Home Secretary Priti Patel could decide whether to extradite. The Cabinet minister subsequently asked District Judge Michael Snow if she could have until March 2022 to make that decision.

Judge Snow refused her application and said she should make a decision before Christmas.

Mr Lynch had challenged that ruling by Judge Snow and wanted Mr Justice Swift to overturn it, but he refused.

“It was for the judge to decide whether there was sufficient reason to grant the extension requested,” said Mr Justice Swift in his written ruling today. “The judge was entitled to expect a clear explanation of the reasons why the extension was needed.”

He added: “No such explanation is immediately apparent from the reasons relied on by the Secretary of State.”

Mr Justice Swift said the decision deadline had been extended to cater for Mr Lynch’s High Court challenge.

He indicated that Ms Patel will now have to make a decision before the end of this week.