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.”
What is the Alpha case?
BYJU’s Alpha was incorporated when Raveendran was running the management of edtech firm Think and Learn Private Limited — which operated under the ed-tech company name. The judgement follows a dispute between Byju’s and US-based lenders on Term Loan B fund. TLPL had secured around USD 1.16 billion Term Loan B from the lenders. They had later alleged that BYJU’s Alpha has violated terms of the loan and USD 533 million out of the total debt has been moved out of the US illegitimately. The Glas Trust gad moved the Delaware court and received a favourable order to take control of BYJU’s Alpha. Both BYJU’s Alpha and Glas Trust moved the Delaware Bankruptcy Court for the discovery of USD 533 million and related transactions.
The judgment directed Raveendran to provide a full and accurate accounting of the Alpha Funds and any proceeds thereof, such as the Camshaft LP Interest, including each and every subsequent transfer and any proceeds thereof. Raveendran in a disclosure to counter allegation of siphoning of TLB funds though overseas entities OCI and Camshaft had said that it routinely engaged with the UK-based OCI for its international expansion and business purposes, including marketing expenses, purchase of equipment. BYJU’S Alpha had bought a small interest in Camshaft which provided credit to OCI for carrying out routine business as discussion with other investors and lenders was taking time to pursue Byju’s expansion plan.
