Monday Dec 16, 2024
Monday Dec 16, 2024
Monday, 20 December 2021 04:22 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Fresh rumblings have surfaced within a listed company, once famed for pioneering initiatives in the capital market, following the appointment of a new Non-Executive Chairman.
Apparently, a few high-handed actions by the new Chairman, including purported internal investigation sans Board notification on a former Executive, has sparked serious allegations.
The company, controlled by a tycoon based in Southeast Asia, had originally duly accepted the resignation of the Executive, who was also a CEO of a subsidiary. News of an outsider parachuting to the Board as Director with promise of Chairmanship saw the incumbent – a highly respected corporate legal luminary – quitting.
Hailing from sports and politics, the highly ambitious and flashy Chairman has apparently irked the Board apart from re-igniting internal probes and alleging the former Executive had leaked out sensitive information. What has caused serious concern isn’t the probe but the former Executive in turn alleging serious fraud and malpractice by the company in retaliation.
The company had notified the former Executive that his resignation (effected in August) will only be subject to an independent audit to be carried out with regard to affairs of the company during his tenure. Payments due to the Executive, who resigned, have been suspended.
The salvo to ex-employee however comes after the company's secretaries in a filing to the CSE in early September denied any audit or investigation and confirmed that the resignation was voluntary.
The former Executive, apart from denying all charges, had lodged a complaint at the Department of Labour against the company.
He has also accused the company of forging and frequently applying his signature to the company's audited accounts for FY21 after he had previously refused to sign. The company however filed the Annual Report to the SEC and CSE and the former Executive had explicitly disassociated himself from the publication.
He had said that putting his signature sans approval and his refusal tantamount to fraud, forgery and or deliberate misrepresentation with implication of civil and/or criminal liability under the law.
Via his lawyers, the former Executive has written to the company to withdraw the offending Annual Report from the company's web site, SEC and CSE and any other parties to whom it has been circulated. He has also informed the company to pay Rs. 25 million for wrongful conduct.
