A former executive at the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, sued the company, claiming that she was fired after blowing the whistle on bribery concerns.
Former London-based senior Binance employee Amrita Srivastava made the claims at an employment tribunal, according to a Nov. 28 Bloomberg report. She claims that a co-worker took a bribe “under the guise of providing consultative services” that would speed up the integration of the customer into Binance.
“My experience at Binance has been personally damaging to my career, an impact I will continue to have to undo over the next few years,” Srivastava said in a filing for the hearing.
The news follows May reports of Binance terminating the investigator who uncovered some customer’s involvement in pump-and-dump schemes and wash trading. The company deemed the proof against its “VIP” customers insufficient and fired the investigation team’s head a week after receiving the report.
The co-worker in question—who has since left Binance—was also allegedly pretending not to work for the company. Srivastava worked remotely at the firm’s Binance link platform, which connects external brokers and customers to the exchange.
“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 gray area—it is most definitely wrong,” Srivastava said in a witness statement.
A Binance representative told Decrypt that the company was “aware of the meritless allegations made by Ms. Srivastava.” The company claims that she was dismissed due to “underperformance” and “the decision to end her employment for poor performance pre-dated concerns she raised about an issue that was already known and under investigation by our internal audit team.
“For the avoidance of doubt, Binance has strict anti-retaliation and anti-bribery policies,” the company spokesperson concluded.
In her lawsuit against Binance Europe, she claims that she told her managers about the bribery in April 2023 and was fired a month later. The exchange’s lawyer argues that the company already knew of the incident and decided to let her go due to performance concerns.
“The decision to end her employment for poor performance pre-dated concerns she raised about an issue that was already known and under investigation by our internal audit team,” Binance told Bloomberg.
Srivastava joined the exchange in April 2022 after working at Mastercard as the head of fintech coverage for Western Europe. She claims to have perceived that her colleagues wanted to “fix” Binance and make it compliant.
Instead, she lamented a chaotic work environment where “the pressure was on for deals to be delivered.”
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
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