Binance is facing legal action after a former senior employee claimed the company fired him for disguising a colleague’s bribery attempt as consulting services.
A former Binance executive has sued the British cryptocurrency exchange, claiming he was wrongfully fired after reporting claims that a colleague solicited bribes from customers, Bloomberg reported.
Amrita Srivastava, a London-based senior Binance employee, testified at an employment tribunal that she was sacked after raising concerns about a bribery case. Srivastava said the associate received money “under the guise of providing consulting services” to track customers’ Binance integrations while pretending not to be affiliated with the company. According to the report, the colleague has since left Binance.
Srivastava, who worked remotely on Binance’s Link platform, which connects brokers and customers to the exchange, sued its European affiliate, Binance Europe Ltd. She informed managers about the bribery in April 2023, but was fired a month later, according to Bloomberg.
In response, Binance’s lawyer said that the exchange was already aware of the incident and that Srivastava’s dismissal was due to poor performance, not whistleblowing. “The decision to terminate her employment due to her poor performance predated the concerns she raised about matters that were known and are being investigated by our internal audit team,” an exchange spokesperson told Bloomberg in a statement.
While working at Link’s unit, Srivastava realized that about a quarter of Link’s service revenue came from customers linked to Iran, and said there was pressure to get the deal done as Binance tried to fill the revenue gap.
Binance’s lawyers said in court papers that company executives were aware of the bribery and escalated the problem. In his application for a hearing, Srivastava noted that his experience at Binance was “personally detrimental to my career, the impact of which will continue to be undoing for years to come.”