Grover has roped in New Delhi-based law firm Karanjawala & Co. and is engaging with them on how to best safeguard his position and keep his shareholding of around 9% intact in the fintech startup, one of the people said.
This, at a time when he is in the line of fire with the BharatPe board and investors, after they constituted an investigation and audit of the company. ET has learnt that Grover is readying himself with legal ammunition in an eventuality of his ouster post the investigation.
“He (Grover) has begun conversations with Karanjawala as of now and is exploring his legal options against a potential ouster from BharatPe,” a person aware of the matter said.
Ruby Singh Ahuja, senior partner at Karanjawala & Co., confirmed to ET that the firm is advising Grover but declined to comment further. Grover did not respond to ET’s email and messages on the matter on Sunday.
Grover is taking legal opinion on all potential outcomes and circumstances including allegations of fraudulent transactions at BharatPe, said the person aware of the matter.
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On Saturday, BharatPe issued a statement, saying
it is conducting an investigation and audit of the firm, with a new twist emerging about alleged financial irregularities in the company valued at $2.8 billion. The board also said that no termination of any employee had taken place, reacting to news reports which suggested that Grover had been fired.
Alvarez & Marsal, a management consultant and risk advisory firm, has been appointed to conduct the audit and recommend the board on the steps the company needs to take.
A person familiar with details of the charges said these involve financial irregularities through multiple discrepancies around invoicing, payments for QR-code fleet, and related-party transactions resulting in a conflict of interest. “The audit is looking to establish the nature and scale of these irregularities. Besides Grover, Madhuri, his wife, is also under the scanner. The board will take action based on the findings of the audit report,” one of the people said. “It will be critical to establish if the irregularities were ‘premeditated’ or not for anyone to be sacked,” this person said. It is not clear when Alavarez & Marsal has to submit its report.
An email sent to BharatPe did not elicit any immediate response on Sunday night.
Currently, Grover
is on a ‘voluntary leave’ till the end of March. In a personal statement, he had said he will come back to the company on or before April 1.
Having come under the scanner for his allegedly inappropriate conduct towards a Kotak Mahindra Bank employee
in a leaked audio clip, Grover is finding no support from the fintech’s board, investors, and even the top management at the company, according to people in the know of the developments. “It’s clean up time… Audit is to give a clean slate for the company from here on but pretty much every other stakeholder in the company is gunning for Ashneer,” one of them said.
As reported by ET, BharatPe’s board and investors like Sequoia Capital India, which owns nearly 20% in the firm, have been asked questions on why they did not take any action despite so many red flags around corporate governance in the firm.
Rajnish Kumar, former chairman of State Bank of India, is the chairman of BharatPe’s board of directors. Rahul Kishore of Coatue Management; Harshjit Sethi, a managing director at Sequoia Capital India; Kewal Kundanlal Handa, former chairman, Union Bank of India; and Meyer Malka (also known as Micky) of Ribbit Capital, are among the board members of BharatPe’s parent Resilient Innovations.
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