A former senior employee at Binance Holdings Ltd., Amrita Srivastava, has filed a lawsuit against the cryptocurrency exchange, alleging unfair dismissal after she raised concerns about an alleged bribery incident involving a colleague.
The employment tribunal in London has brought to light claims that a Binance employee took payments under the guise of “consultative services” to expedite a customer’s integration into the platform. According to a Bloomberg report, Srivastava alleged that the colleague concealed his association with Binance and has since left the company.
Srivastava, who worked on Binance’s Link platform, reported the alleged bribery to management in April 2023. She was dismissed a month later, a move she contends was retaliatory. Binance, however, has denied the allegations, stating her dismissal was due to poor performance unrelated to her whistleblowing.
“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 said in a statement.
The tribunal provides a rare look into Binance’s internal operations, which have been under scrutiny following a $4.3 billion penalty for violating U.S. anti-money laundering and sanctions laws.
Srivastava, a former Mastercard executive, joined Binance in 2022, believing the company was committed to improving compliance. Instead, she described a “chaotic” working environment driven by revenue pressures, including filling a gap caused by terminating ties with a customer linked to Iran.
“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 statement.
“My experience at Binance has been personally damaging to my career,” Srivastava said in her filing, emphasizing the professional and reputational harm she has endured.
The UK tribunal’s whistleblowing awards are uncapped, potentially paving the way for significant damages if Srivastava’s claims are upheld.
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