BharatPe co-founder and managing director Ashneer Grover has lost an arbitration that he had filed against the company’s investigation against him, news agency PTI reported quoting sources. According to the report, the emergency arbitrator held that there was no ground to stop governance review at the fintech firm.
Grover, who last month 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.
The emergency arbitrator (EA) has, however, rejected all the five grounds of his appeal and denied a single relief, sources with direct knowledge of the development said.
Speaking with moneycontrol.com, BharatPe’s lead counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, he was “most impressed with the speed and diligence with which emergency hearings were taken up and decided in record time, despite a host of issues involved”.
While BharatPe declined to comment as the matter was sub judice, Grover could not be immediately reached for comments. Grover had pleaded before the arbitrator that the preliminary investigation was invalid because it was in violation of the shareholder agreement and articles of association and the company has no authority to conduct such an investigation.
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He had termed all appointments for the independent audit of the company’s internal processes and systems as bad in law.
He had alleged that the members of the committee reviewing governance processes, such as company CEO Suhail Sameer and the company’s general counsel Sumeet Singh, seemed to be biased.
