BharatPe co-founder in legal tangle after alleged ‘abusive call’

Ashneer Grover, Indian millionaire and co-founder of fintech unicorn BharatPe, is at the center of a legal storm.

BharatPe co-founder and managing director Ashneer Grover / Photo credit: BharatPe

Kotak Mahindra Bank, one of India’s largest private lenders, is planning to take legal action against him and his wife, Madhuri, who is also BharatPe’s head of controls.

BharatPe told Tech in Asia that it did not have anything to comment on the matter.

The dispute concerns the bank allegedly failing to get the couple shares of FSN E-Commerce Ventures, the parent company of cosmetics retailer Nykaa, after its listing in November. The shares were worth over US$67 million.

Following this, the Grovers reportedly issued a legal notice to Kotak Mahindra Bank in which their lawyer alleged that despite repeated assurances by the lender that shares of FSN would be allotted to the couple, Kotak was unable to meet the request.

The issue took a murky turn after an anonymous Twitter handle, BabuBongo, shared an audio clip in which a person, allegedly Ashneer Grover, could be heard hurling abuses against a Kotak bank manager and giving him death threats for failing to deliver the FSN shares to him and his wife.

The deleted tweet by anonymous user BabuBongo / Source: Twitter

The audio clip went viral on social media, furthering a conversation on the toxicity of startup culture.

Grover then tweeted saying that the audio clip was fake, adding that it was a scamster trying to extort funds from him in bitcoin. Later, both the BabuBongo audio clip and Grover’s tweet were deleted.

However, Kotak Mahindra Bank stated that it has placed on record “our objections to inappropriate language used by Mr. Grover. We would like to confirm that there is no breach or violation by the Kotak Group in any manner whatsoever.”

“Appropriate legal action is being pursued,” the bank added.

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