A short history of events that led to Ashneer Grover’s resignation from BharatPe
The Hindu
BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover has been embroiled in a controversy since an audio clip that is allegedly of him abusing an employee of Kotak Mahindra Bank was leaked online in January.
The story so far: Fintech company BharatPe on March 2 removed co-founder Ashneer Grover from all positions of the company, accusing his family of extensively misappropriating the company’s funds.
BharatPe said that external advisors had reviewed the company’s internal controls, and Mr. Grover resigned shortly after he was informed that these findings will be presented to the company’s Board. The Grover family’s alleged misappropriation of funds included creating fake vendors to siphon money away from the company’s expense amount to fund lavish lifestyles.
In his resignation letter, Mr. Grover said that he is being “vilified and treated in the most disgraceful manner”. He also added that the company’s investors have treated the founders as “slaves”.
Mr. Grover resigned from his posts of managing director and a director of the board but added that he will continue as the “single largest individual shareholder of the company”.
Early in January 2022, an audio clip allegedly of Mr. Grover abusing an employee of Kotak Mahindra Bank for failing to secure funds to buy shares of Nykaa during the company’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) surfaced online. The BharatPe co-founder reacted to the audio clip by calling it fake. On January 9, 2022, the lender said that it will take legal action against Mr. Grover.
Following the controversy, the company announced that Mr. Grover had taken voluntary leave till the end of March.
Before his resignation, Mr. Grover’s emergency plea against a review of how the company was governed was rejected by the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC). In his plea, he had alleged that the members of the committee reviewing the governance of the company seemed biased. The emergency arbitrator rejected all five grounds of Mr. Grover’s appeal.