Fintech firm BharatPe has reached a settlement with its former co-founder Ashneer Grover, ending years of acrimonious legal battles and public disputes between the two parties.
A BharatPe spokesperson said in a statement as per Moneycontrol that certain shares of Ashneer Grover will be transferred to the Resilient Growth Trust for the benefit of BharatPe and his remaining shares will be managed by his family trust. Both parties decided not to pursue the cases filed, it said, adding, “We wish Mr. Grover well. BharatPe continues to focus on delivering industry-leading solutions to its merchants and customers driving growth with profitability.”
A source close to the company said he will be transferring 1.4% of his holding to the BharatPe board, with the rest 3.5-3.7% going to a family trust, thus keeping him off from the company’s cap table.
Further, he will also return shares to BharatPe co-founder Bhavik Koladiya. In January 2023, Koladiya alleged that he transferred 1,611 shares of BharatPe (now 16,110 shares) worth Rs 88 Lakh to Grover, but never got paid for these. The matter later went to court and Grover was barred from selling these shares.
The move to smoke the peace pipe comes days after Deepak Gupta, a family member of former BharatPe managing director and co-founder Ashneer Grover was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police in the case of alleged misappropriation of the fintech unicorn’s funds.
Deepak Gupta is the husband of Madhuri Grover’s sister. Madhuri Grover, the wife of Ashneer Grover, was fired by BharatPe as its Head of Controls. Gupta was arrested on the night of September 19 was supposed to be produced in front of the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court.
BharatPe had filed a criminal complaint in December 2022 against 5 accused – Ashneer Grover, Madhuri Grover, Shwetank Jain (brother of Madhuri), Suresh Jain (father-in-law of Ashneer) and Deepak Gupta (brother-in-law of Ashneer and Madhuri).
The EOW filed an FIR against BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain and their family members Deepak Gupta, Suresh Jain and Shwetank Jain in May 2023 in the Rs 81-crore fraud case.
Last month, the EOW had made its first arrest in the case — Amit Kumar Bansal was nabbed on the allegation of being one of the members of the non-existing firms that had received payments of Rs 72 crore from the then directors of BharatPe between 2019 and 2021.
BharatPe has accused Grover and his family of causing losses to the firm to the tune of about Rs 81.3 crore through illegitimate payments to bogus human-resource consultants, inflated and undue payments through pass-through vendors connected to the accused, sham transactions in input-tax credit and payment of penalty to Goods and Services Tax (GST) authorities, illegal payments to travel agencies, invoices forged by Jain and destruction of evidence.
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