Riju Ravindran, brother of Byju Raveendran, has been ordered by US Bankruptcy Court of Delaware’s Judge Brendan Shannon to pay $10,000 a day until he helps locate $533 million that his company has been accused of hiding from US lenders.
A Bloomberg report states that the same judge had dismissed his plea to put the order on hold until the company could get a new lawyer. The current lawyer has been instructed to continue for at least a month. It’s a result of Ravindran’s prevailing legal representation and BYJU’S moving away from the dispute citing an “irreparable breakdown”.
The edtech major is in dispute with a host of US-based lenders for its $1.2 billion Term B Loan from the latter.
The $533 million is linked to the bankrupt shell company affiliated with Think & Learn- BYJU’S Alpha Inc., which was taken over by the lenders after a loan defaulted. The ongoing case is to recover the missing cash.
At a show cause hearing, Ravindran was found in contempt of court previously in May because of his repeated refusals to disclose the whereabouts of the $533 million proceeds transferred from BYJU’S Alpha Inc.
The US-based lenders collectively represented by GLAS, have also filed an insolvency plea against the edtech in the Bengaluru bench of NCLT earlier in 2024. The NCLAT postponed its decision for the case yesterday.
