London: A fresh filing in the Delaware Bankruptcy Court in the US on Saturday claimed that the missing $533 million from Byju's Alpha was roundtripped right back to Byju Raveendran, co-founder of Think and Learn Pvt Ltd, and associates including Rupin Banker, Money Control reported.
However, Founders of Think & Learn, Byju's parent company, denied any wrongdoing in a statement on November 17, calling it is ‘full of conjectures and selective insinuations’.
The filing comes after Byju’s Alpha sought approval of settlement with the UK-based procurement company, OCI Limited, which reportedly received most of the disputed money.
A declaration that OCI’s founder Oliver Chapman submitted ‘itemises down to the cent what happened to the Alpha Funds, once OCI received the money’, alongside claiming that the Alpha Funds was not used for ‘legitimate commercial purposes.’
It also claimed that OCI did not use the money to ‘procure goods and services, such as tablets and advertising for Think & Learn’.
The filing reportedly said that ‘In an unsolicited, sworn declaration filed with the Court in the fall of 2024, Raveendran repeatedly represented that the money actually had been sent to OCI for “legitimate commercial purposes,” namely, to procure “services to T&L and its subsidiaries in relation to the procurement of IT equipment, such as electronic tablets, and advertising (including marketing via various media)’.
It is reported citing Chapman’s review that ‘$533 million was clandestinely removed’ in 2022 to Byju’s Global Pte Ltd in Singapore, individually owned by Raveendran.
Thus the filing in the court claimed that this transaction was an evidence of ‘personal enrichment’.
The filing further claimed citing the declaration that ‘Raveendran’s plot was to siphon hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate assets for personal use’.
Rejecting reject the allegations made in GLAS Trust’s latest filing, Byju's said ‘Mr. Chapman’s testimony is full of conjectures and selective insinuations and does not substantiate any claim of wrongdoing by the founders of BYJU’S. At most, his declaration reflects his limited knowledge of specific expenditures undertaken by OCI; it does not establish any diversion of funds by the founders’.