Ashneer Grover Resigns As Bharatpe Md And Director

Mar 1, 2022 admin 195 Views

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In a scathing letter of resignation to the board, Ashneer wrote, “I write this with a heavy heart as today I am being forced to bid adieu to a company of which I am a founder. I say with my head held high that today this company stands as a leader in the fintech world. Since the beginning of 2022, unfortunately, I’ve been embroiled in baseless and targeted attacks on me and my family by a few individuals who are ready not only to harm me and my reputation but also harm the reputation of the company, which ostensibly they are trying to protect.”

BharatPe was the last entrant in UPI space and competed with goliaths like PayTM, PhonePe and GooglePay and still emerged as a leader in the industry.

Writing further in the resignation letter, Grover said, “From being celebrated as the face of Indian entrepreneurship and an inspiration to the Indian youth to build their own businesses, I am now wasting myself fighting a long, lonely battle against my own investors and management. Unfortunately, in this battle, the management has lost of what is actually at stake — BharatPe.”

Earlier, Grover had lost an arbitration that he had filed against the company’s investigation against him, with an emergency arbitrator holding that there was no ground to stop governance review at the fintech firm.

Grover, who in January went on a two-month leave of absence following allegations of using abusive language against Kotak Mahindra Bank staff and fraudulent practices, had filed an arbitration plea with the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) claiming the company’s investigation against him was illegal.

His leave came against the backdrop of a leaked audio clip in which Grover is allegedly heard abusing and threatening a Kotak Group employee for missing out on share allotment during the IPO of FSN E-Commerce Ventures, which operates Nykaa.

Grover claimed the viral audio clip was fake and an attempt to extort money. He, however, deleted the post later. He sent a legal notice to Kotak for failure to provide financing for Nykaa IPO. The notice was sent on October 30, 2021, but came to light following the leaked audio clip.

(The story has been updated with more details.)

(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)

First Published: Mar 01, 2022, 07:54 AM IST