May 15, 2023: British tech businessman Mike Lynch has been deported to the U.S. to encounter fraud charges about selling his software firm Autonomy to Hewlett Packard.

On Thursday, Lynch arrived in the U.S. afternoon and is now detained in San Francisco until bail rules are met, his spokesperson stated. He faces charges of securities and wire fraud about the sale of his company Autonomy to HP for $11 billion.

The spokesperson said the entrepreneur attended an arraignment hearing on Thursday and was told to pay a $100 million bail to be released on house detention. It is not yet clear if Lynch intends to pay the bond.

“The bail which the U.S. court is applying is by U.K. levels extraordinarily increased and is a clear the instances of the differing the ways of the U.S. and U.K. when it arrives to prosecuting allegations of white-collar crime,” Thomas Garner, extradition partner at law firm Fladgate, told through email.

It comes following Lynch lost a High Court battle to appeal extradition last month.

Lynch, aged 57, sold his software new Autonomy, to HP in 2011 for $11.7 billion, instantly evolving him into one of the wealthiest and most enjoyed tech founders in the U.K.

A year later, HP stated an $8.8 billion write-down on the firm, claiming that “accounting irregularities” which leads it to pay too much for Autonomy, selling data analytics software to firms.

HP’s main accusation is that execs of anatomy has inflated the firm’s revenues by around $700 million. The firm sued Autonomy for $5 billion. Lynch counter-sued, which leads to a complex legal fight that has been rumbling on for ten years.

In January of the previous year, then-U.K. Interior Minister Priti Patel allowed Lynch’s extradition to the U.S. following a British judge ruled in favour of HP in a civil case against Lynch regarding claims that he plotted to inflate the value of Autonomy before HP bought it.

Lynch isn’t the initial Autonomy employee to face the consequences in the U.S. In 2019, the retired CFO Sushovan Hussain was held accountable for fraud and sentenced to five years of jail.

A few in the U.K. tech industry believe Lynch should not have been deported. In February, several entrepreneurs, including Made.com co-founder Brent Hoberman, officially stated to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, noted regarding America’s “unreasonable” use of an extradition treaty to relocate the technology businessman.