Binance is facing legal action after a former senior employee accused the cryptocurrency exchange of wrongfully dismissing her after she reported a colleague’s alleged bribery attempt. The lawsuit, filed in the United Kingdom, involves Amrita Srivastava, a former senior employee at Binance who worked on the company’s Link platform, which connects brokers and customers to the exchange.
Srivastava claims that she was terminated after raising concerns about an incident in which a colleague attempted to solicit a bribe from a customer. According to Srivastava, the bribery was disguised as a “consultative service” aimed at tracking the customer’s integration with Binance, with the colleague pretending not to be affiliated with the company. The colleague in question has since left Binance, as reported by Bloomberg.
The whistleblowing incident occurred in April 2023, but Srivastava says she was fired just a month later. She is now suing Binance Europe Ltd, the company’s European arm, alleging that her dismissal was in retaliation for her reporting the alleged bribery attempt.
In response, Binance’s legal team has stated that the company was already aware of the bribery attempt and had initiated an internal investigation at the time Srivastava raised the issue. The exchange’s lawyers also claim that Srivastava’s dismissal was due to poor performance, and not as a result of her whistleblowing. A spokesperson for Binance emphasized that Srivastava’s termination for performance issues occurred before the concerns she raised were brought to the company’s attention.
Srivastava, who worked remotely for Binance’s Link platform, has stated that during her time at the company, there was significant pressure to deliver deals. She claims that Binance was trying to close a revenue gap after discovering that a significant portion of Link’s service revenue had come from a customer with ties to Iran.
Binance’s lawyer further argued in court filings that the company’s executives were already aware of the bribery and had escalated the issue for investigation. However, Srivastava, in her legal filing, has said that the experience has been personally damaging to her career, and she anticipates it will take years to repair the reputational damage she suffered as a result of her dismissal.
The legal proceedings come amid heightened scrutiny of Binance’s operations globally, as the company faces regulatory challenges and legal disputes in multiple jurisdictions.
