Amrita Srivastava, a former senior executive at Binance, is suing the cryptocurrency exchange, alleging that she was dismissed unfairly after exposing a bribery incident within the company.
Srivastava, who worked remotely in Binance’s London office, claims a colleague solicited a bribe from a customer in exchange for speeding up their integration into the platform.
According to Srivastava, this bribe was disguised as a consultancy fee.
She reported the incident to her managers in April 2023 but was fired just one month later.
Srivastava believes her dismissal was directly linked to her whistleblowing actions, making her case a significant example of potential retaliation against employees raising concerns about unethical practices.
Binance disputes Srivastava’s claims, asserting that she was fired for poor performance, not because of her whistleblowing.
According to Decrypt, a company spokesperson said that her dismissal was "pre-dated" by concerns about her job performance, which they argue had already been noted prior to the bribery allegations.
Binance also pointed out that the issue of bribery was already under investigation by the company’s internal audit team when Srivastava raised her concerns.
Despite this, Srivastava remains adamant that the timing of her dismissal and her reporting of the bribery were too closely linked to be purely coincidental.
She has stated in her legal filing that her time at Binance caused significant damage to her career, which she believes will take years to repair.
Srivastava’s experience at Binance, which she joined in April 2022 after a prominent role at Mastercard, was far from smooth.
She described the company’s internal atmosphere as chaotic, where there was overwhelming pressure to close deals quickly, particularly in the Link unit.
This pressure, Srivastava claims, led to unethical decisions.
She found herself in a situation where she was asked to overlook the defrauding of customers for the sake of business.
In her witness statement, Srivastava emphasised:
“I was not prepared to look the other way when someone had defrauded a customer and yet was still a part of the team—some things are just right and wrong, and asking for a bribe and defrauding a customer was not a grey area—it is most definitely wrong.”
Her concerns were not the only serious issue within Binance during this period.
Reports in May 2024 suggested that Binance had fired an investigator who uncovered evidence of its VIP customers engaging in pump-and-dump schemes and wash trading.
The company deemed the evidence insufficient but nonetheless terminated the investigator a week after receiving the report.
This paints a picture of a company under increasing scrutiny for not only internal wrongdoing but also a culture that discourages reporting such misconduct.
While Srivastava's allegations cast a spotlight on internal issues at Binance, the exchange is already under legal pressure from regulators in multiple countries.
Most notably, the company recently pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money laundering and sanctions laws, agreeing to a hefty $4.3 billion fine.
This legal settlement adds to Binance’s mounting regulatory woes, with ongoing investigations from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Despite the company’s claims of having stringent anti-bribery policies, these ongoing legal challenges highlight the difficulties Binance faces in managing its internal and external regulatory environment.
Srivastava’s case is significant in the context of UK employment law, especially for whistleblowers.
Employment tribunal awards for whistleblowing cases in the UK are uncapped, offering potentially significant compensation.
However, unfair dismissal claims are capped at £105,700 ($134,000), leaving Srivastava to navigate a complex legal path as she seeks justice for her dismissal.
The outcome of this case could have broader implications for whistleblower protections in the financial and tech sectors, especially for those raising concerns within high-pressure environments like Binance’s.
As this case develops, it will provide food for thought on the strength of whistleblower protections in the UK and how much companies like Binance are willing to do to protect their employees who speak out.
Litigation and rebuttal often lag in correcting mistakes, and the best way to change negative impressions is to grow positive value. In the field of crypto assets, this is true for Bitcoin, and so must Binance.
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