Ex-Grab director sued over alleged fraud

Former Grab non-executive director Andy Mills has been named as a defendant in a suit brought by Brendan Sullivan, who was managing director at US-based Archegos Capital Management.

Andy Mills, former Grab non-executive director / Photo credit: Theology of Work

The Financial Times (FT) recently reported on Sullivan’s civil suit against Archegos’ co-founders Bill Hwang and Mills, who was also the firm’s co-CEO.

Sullivan alleged that Archegos, a family office, “fraudulently induced” employees to invest their compensation back into the firm and then “recklessly invested” and lost the money.

He also claimed that Archegos transferred a large block of shares to the Grace and Mercy Foundation, a Christian charitable foundation also co-founded by Hwang and Mills.

The share transfer was a financial “escape pod” for Hwang following the closure of Archegos due to hefty investment losses, Sullivan added.

Aside from Archegos and the Grace and Mercy Foundation, Mills was also a board member of Grab from March 2017 to November 2021 and served a mentor to Anthony Tan, the co-founder of the ride-hailing giant.

In past interviews with Bloomberg and FT, Tan mentioned that Mills was both a business and spiritual guide. Mills reportedly advised Tan and co-founder Tan Hooi Ling on Grab’s maiden business plan at Harvard University in 2010.

A spokesperson for the Southeast Asian super app tells Tech in Asia that Mills was a non-executive director on the board of “a predecessor Grab entity.”

A new board was formed “in the lead-up to the completion of our public listing in 2021, with four independent directors who have deep experience overseeing public companies joining our two co-founders,” the Grab spokesperson adds.

Based on court documents seen by Tech in Asia, Sullivan is seeking to recover US$50 million in deferred bonuses. He is alleging that some of the money had been wrongly channeled to Grace and Mercy.

According to Sullivan, the foundation served as an “alternative cash vehicle where Hwang and select ‘good followers’ could go and be insulated from creditors in the event Archegos failed.”

Separately, Hwang is facing a slew of criminal charges, including alleged racketeering and fraud, filed by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) on April 27 over the collapse of Archegos.

The DoJ claims that Hwang and three others unlawfully manipulated prices of publicly traded securities in Archegos’ portfolio, with the intention of defrauding global investment banks and brokerages.