A US court has ordered Byju Raveendran to pay back over $1 billion on the basis of a petition filed by BYJU’s Alpha and US-based lender GLAS Trust Company LLC. The default judgment held him personally liable for the movement and concealment of funds.
The Delaware Bankruptcy Court found that Raveendran had failed to comply with its discovery order and continued to be evasive on several occasions. The court had also issued contempt order in the matter but noted that he continued to refuse to respond to the discovery requests or pay the sanctions he owed. The judgement found his behaviour to be a “strategic pattern of willful failure to comply with discovery” — imposing sanctions of $10,000 per day until he purges his contempt.
“The court will enter default judgment against Defendant Raveendran…in the amount of USD 533,000,000, and on Counts II, V and VI in the amount of USD 540,647,109.29..The facts and circumstances of this case indicate that Raveendran’s continuing failure to adequately respond to the pending discovery requests is a personal decision by Raveendran, himself, read an excerpt from the verdict.
The court rejected Raveendran’s argument that the GLAS Trust has access to documents through the books of BYJU’S Alpha on the information they are looking for. It noted that there is nothing in the record to support the assertion GLAS has access to relevant documents.”