THE DECISION to extradite British entrepreneur Mike Lynch has been pushed to the end of the year after a judge delayed his decision in the separate $5bn (£3.7bn) case against Lynch by Hewlett-Packard.

A draft decision, spanning over 1,000 pages, had been expected to distributed to both Hewlett-Packard and Lynch by 24 September, according to reports.

But Justice Hildyard missed his own self-imposed deadline to issue the ruling, according to The Telegraph, which first reported the news.

It is not the first time the Judge has delayed making a decision in the biggest fraud trial in Britain. The High Court trial finished in January last year but Hildyard repeatedly delayed issuing a verdict, blaming the complexity of the case.

Lynch, a billionaire, faces accusations he flattered his own company, Autonomy, accounts to extract a better price when it was sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.

Hewlett-Packard wrote off $8.8bn of the value of the acquisition, a year after the sale.

The company blamed an alleged accounting fraud for $5bn of the impairment. Lynch - who has denied the accusation - could spend more than 20 years behind bars, if found guilty.

The postponement of the draft decision could delay the public announcement of a final verdict until 2022 which, in turn, could push back a decision on extraditing Lynch to the US.

In 2018, Lynch was charged by prosecutors in the US for multiple acts of fraud and has not travelled to the country since.

Although a judge, in July this year, ruled that Lynch could be sent to the US to face a trial over the $11bn sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard, the home secretary Priti Patel postponed a ruling on approving his extradition until 29 November.

Hewlett Packard accused Lynch of "outright misrepresentations" in 2012 after the US tech firm wrote down the asset by three quarters.

The Serious Fraud Office in the UK investigated the accusations, however they closed their investigation in 2015 in light of insufficient evidence.

(c) 2021 City A.M., source Newspaper