2022 Year in Review | The Ashneer Grover-BharatPe saga

Viral audio clip: On January 5, 2022, a Twitter user by the name of @BongoBabu tweeted a Soundcloud of audio recording in which BharatPe cofounder Ashneer Grover could allegedly be heard abusing a Kotak Mahindra Bank employee.

A couple of days later, Grover claimed
in a tweet said that the audio was fake and was an attempt to extort money from him. He later
deleted the tweet.

ET reported on January 12 that
Kotak mahindra Bank would take legal action against Grover in an IPO financing matter, after he and his wife Madhuri Jain sent a notice to the bank in October 2021 for failing to provide them financing to invest in Nykaa’s initial public offering.

On January 20, an email exchange between Grover and Sequoia India employee Harshjit Sethi surfaced, in which Grover
allegedly used several expletives over the course of the conversation.

Internal audit and investigations: On January 19, Grover, then managing director of BharatPe,
went on ‘voluntary’ leave until the end of March. “I plan to take a temporary leave of absence from BharatPe till March-end. I will return on or before April 1, 2022,” he said.

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On January 29, BharatPe announced it had appointed Alvarez & Marsal
to conduct an independent audit. A day later, Grover announced
that he had hired a law firm amid mounting pressure from the board to leave the company, but added that he expected an amicable resolution.
On February 4, reports emerged that a preliminary audit report, dated January 24,
found evidence of fraudulent transactions in recruitment and payments to non-existent vendors. Hours later, it is revealed that Grover had written to board members on February 2, asking them to
remove CEO Suhail Sameer from the board.

On February 22, Grover
sought protection from any future action against him as part of his settlement, sources told ET.

Sackings and resignations: On February 23,
BharatPe sacked Madhuri Jain, the company’s financial controller and Grover’s wife, on charges of misappropriating funds. Jain had been in charge of BharatPe’s finances since October 2018.

Grover resigned from BharatPe and its board at midnight on March 1. “You treat us founders as slaves – pushing us to build multi-billion-dollar businesses and cutting us down at will. [The] investor-founder relationship in India is one of master-slave,”
Grover wrote in his resignation letter.

“I am the rebel slave who must be hung by the tree so none of the other slaves can dare to be like me ever again,” he added. Grover, in an exclusive chat with ET,
said he had lost management shares worth Rs 100 crore as a result of his resignation.

Back and forth: The final report of the internal governance review undertaken by BharatPe and its board
found Grover and his family members guilty of fraud, the company said in a statement on March 2. BharatPe added that Grover and his family members engaged in extensive misappropriation of funds and syphoned money away from the company’s accounts.

On April 7, Grover and BharatPe CEO Suhail Sameer got into a spat on LinkedIn, in which Sameer accused Grover of stealing the company’s money,
a statement for which he later apologised. On April 8, ET reported that
Grover had asked for the company’s financial details, access to which was denied to him by the CEO.

HC summons the Grovers: On December 8, the Delhi High Court
issued a summons to Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain, and their family members over a suit filed by the fintech firm. BharatPe filed both civil and criminal suits against the defendants, in addition to a complaint with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW).

Grover, Jain and her brother Shwetank Jain, her sister’s husband Deepak Gupta, and her father Suresh Jain are the five defendants in the suit. On December 9,
BharatPe filed an arbitration to claw back Grover’s restricted shareholding and founder title, sources told ET.

The arbitration was filed under Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) rules. Grover holds about 8.5% of the company and 1.4% of his shares are not vested.