Former Autonomy Chief Executive Mike Lynch issued a statement Thursday after his acquittal of criminal charges, ending a 13-year legal battle with Hewlett-Packard that became one of America's largest fraud cases. Silicon Valley. He was accused of falsely inflating the British startup's revenue before Autonomy's sale to HP for $11 billion in 2011.
Commenting on the acquittal, Lynch (pictured above, left, during his appearance at TechCrunch Disrupt) said in his statement: “I am delighted with today's verdict and grateful to the jury for their consideration. he has brought to the facts over the last ten weeks. My sincerest thanks go to my legal team for their tireless work on my behalf. I can't wait to return to the UK and reunite with what I love most: my family and innovating in my field.
After a 12-week trial, the contractor was cleared of 15 counts of fraud and conspiracy brought against him in connection with the 2011 acquisition.
Lynch's victory is remarkable in light of the fact that in the United States, in fiscal year 2022, only 0.4% of federal criminal cases resulted in a trial and acquittal, according to the Pew Research Center , and only 12% of all wire fraud prosecutions. resulted in acquittal.
Christopher Morvillo and Brian Heberlig, Lynch's legal advisors, added in a statement: “We are pleased with the jury's verdict, which reflects a categorical rejection of government overreach in this case.” The evidence presented at trial conclusively demonstrated that Mike Lynch is innocent. This verdict closes the book on a relentless 13-year effort to pin HP's well-documented ineptitude on Dr. Lynch. Fortunately, the truth ultimately prevailed. We thank Dr Lynch for his confidence throughout this ordeal and hope that he can now return home to England to resume his life and continue to innovate.
Lynch, 58, had already been extradited to the United States and placed under house arrest and 24-hour surveillance before his trial. He has long maintained that he was HP's scapegoat, saying it botched the Autonomy acquisition and then mismanaged the company's software assets.
Lynch made £500 million from the sale of Autonomy to HP. But only a year later, HP wrote down its investment by $8.8 billion, claiming that $5 billion of that writedown was due to practices employed by Autonomy's previous management team, which inflated the value of Autonomy and misled potential buyers into believing that the company was much more valuable.
Prosecutors accused Lynch and Stephen Chamberlain, Autonomy's former vice president of finance, of illegally inflating revenues before the acquisition and hiding high-margin software revenues in unprofitable hardware sales.
At trial, Lynch successfully argued that he had not been involved in accounting and contract matters, but instead had focused on technical and marketing matters.
Despite unsuccessfully arguing that the case should be heard in the United Kingdom, which would have led to his extradition, the American jury cleared Lynch of all charges, as did Chamberlain, who was also on trial .
The San Francisco U.S. Attorney's Office said: “We recognize and respect the verdict. We would like to thank the jury for its attention to the evidence presented by the government in this case.
The sale of Autonomy to HP was seen as vindication of the UK's burgeoning tech scene, and the platform's ability to sift through unstructured databases was, at the time, seen as a way for HP to rebuild its stagnant hardware business.
Lynch co-founded Autonomy in 1996 as part of a software research group called Cambridge Neurodynamics.
Awarded an OBE for services to business in 2006, Lynch became an advisor to the British government. He has served on the boards of the BBC and the British Library, founded Invoke Capital VC and invested in cybersecurity company Darktrace.