18 March 2024, 17:43 GMTUpdated 1 hour agoImage supply, Getty Photographs/BloombergImage caption, Mike Lynch arriving at federal court docket in San Francisco on MondayBritish tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch is showing in court docket in america, as his trial on fraud fees will get beneath manner.As soon as dubbed “Britain’s Invoice Gates”, Mr Lynch is accused of overinflating the price of his tool company when he bought it to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.The 58-year-old, who faces 16 fees, faces as much as 25 years in jail if convicted. He denies the claims.He was once extradited to america final 12 months, after a UK pass judgement on dominated in favour of HP in a identical civil fraud case.In opening arguments, Mr Lynch’s lawyer Reid Weingarten mentioned the multi-millionaire was once getting ready to take the stand at trial, as he seeks to protect a report that has been significantly battered for the reason that sale of the company Autonomy for greater than $11bn (£8.6bn). On the time, the deal ranked because the largest-ever takeover of a British era industry.However only a 12 months later, HP wrote down the price of Autonomy by means of $8.8bn and claimed it have been duped into overpaying for the corporate.Mr Weingarten instructed the jury that Mr Lynch had all in favour of era, leaving the budget to others. “Mike had many sleepless nights being worried about Autonomy, however now not about accounting,” Mr Weingarten mentioned, consistent with the Reuters information company.Mr Lynch co-founded Autonomy in 1996. It grew to change into one of the vital UK’s best 100 public firms, identified for tool that would extract helpful knowledge from “unstructured” resources corresponding to telephone calls, emails or video.US prosecutors in San Francisco say Mr Lynch backdated agreements to lie to concerning the corporate’s gross sales; hid the company’s loss-making industry reselling {hardware}; and intimidated or paid off individuals who raised considerations, amongst different claims. In court docket filings, his legal professionals have argued that the “actual explanation why for the write-down” was once a failure by means of HP to regulate the merger. “Then, with its inventory worth crumbling beneath the burden of its personal mismanagement, rotated the wagons to offer protection to its new leaders and wantonly accused” Mr Lynch of fraud, they wrote. Mr Lynch, a former UK govt adviser who sat at the forums of the BBC and the British Library, vigorously fought makes an attempt by means of US prosecutors to convey him to trial in The usa, which is understood for its punitive method to white-collar crime. In 2019, Autonomy’s former leader monetary officer Sushovan Hussain was once jailed for 5 years and fined tens of millions of bucks on 16 counts of fraud, securities fraud and different fees.In 2022, HP received a civil fraud case in opposition to Mr Lynch and Hussain heard by means of London’s Prime Courtroom. It’s now in quest of a reported $4bn. If so, Mr Lynch and Hussain argued that HP’s declare was once “‘manufactured’ to hide and justify a metamorphosis of company thoughts, and to solid them as scapegoats for what in truth is purchaser’s regret coupled with control failings”.In addition to Mr Lynch, Autonomy’s former finance govt Stephen Chamberlain may be on trial.
