BharatPe Corporate Governance Issue

March 2, 2022

Co-founder and managing director of BharatPe, Ashneer Grover, resigned from company, days after BharatPe terminated the services of his wife and head of controls, Madhuri Jain Grover, over alleged financial irregularities.

Highlights

Following the resignation of Ashneer Grover, company noted to reserves the right to take action on the basis of report findings.
Ashneer Grover resigned, after he received the agenda for upcoming Board meeting that included submission of PWC report on his conduct and considering actions based on it.
BharatPe has been conducting a governance review. It has roped in risk advisory firm Alvarez and Marsal, consulting firm PwC and law firm Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Co, in a bid to probe alleged funds misappropriation and corporate governance issues under Ashneer Grover.

Termination of services

Earlier, BharatPe board decided to terminate the services of Grover, in light of serious charges of funds misappropriation, including GST evasion. It led BharatPe to pay more than Rs 11 crore after raids were conducted by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) at its head office.

BharatPe

BharatPe is an Indian fintech company. It caters to small merchants and kirana store owners across India. It offers a range of fintech products including Bharat Swipe (POS machine) for card acceptance, interoperable QR code for UPI payments, and small business financing. It facilitates small merchants to accept payments through Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for free, using BharatPe QR codes. It also offers merchant loans of up to Rs 7 lakhs for 3 to 12 months.

Founder and Brand Ambassador

BharatPe was co-founded in 2018, by Shashwat Nakrani and Ashneer Grover. It is headquartered in New Delhi, India. In 2020, cricketers including Rohit Sharma, K.L. Rahul, Jasprit Bumrah, Suresh Raina, Mohammed Shami, Ravindra Jadeja, Prithvi Shaw, Shreyas Iyer, Shubman Gill, Sanju Samson, and Yuzvendra Chahal, were signed as BharatPe brand ambassadors. In 2020, it hired Suhail Sameer as their group president.

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