HP has finally won its eight-year court battle against a CEO who defrauded the company out of more than A$7 billion.

In 2011, HP paid A$15.8 billion for enterprise software company Autonomy, and were forced to announced a A$12.65 billion write-down when it became clear it wasn’t worth this.

HP sued Autonomy founder and CEO Mike Lynch in 2015, claiming Autonomy’s management team “used accounting improprieties, misrepresentations, and disclosure failures to inflate the underlying financial metrics of [Autonomy].”

Eight years later, and following a similar fraud case in the US, the UK’s High Court found that HP had “substantially succeeded” in proving that Lynch had fraudulently inflated the company’s value, revenue, and earnings.

The ruling, likely to be in the billions, coupled with the drawn out process makes this the biggest civil fraud trial in UK history.

HP is claiming damages of A$7.2 billion, but the judge said the payment will be “considerably less”.

Hours after this ruling, the UK home secretary approved Lynch’s extradition to the United States, where he faces 17 separate charges, including wire fraud, conspiracy, and securities fraud. Lynch denies all these charges.

Lynch’s lawyer said his client plans to appeal the High Court ruling, and the extradition order.