Byju Raveendran intends to initiate a claim of damages worth $2.5 billion against GLAS Trust, following a claim filed by the fund that $533 million was stolen from Byju Alpha. The action follows several days after a Delaware bankruptcy court ordered him to pay over $1.07 billion in a default judgment. The order came after a disagreement about the treatment of the proceeds of a $1.2 billion term loan taken by the edtech company in 2021.
According to the court, the founders were not advocating for a substantial portion of the loan proceeds. This finding was not agreeable to Raveendran. He alleged that the court failed to give him the necessary time to get a lawyer despite having demanded 30 days to hire one.
Raveendran appealed the judgment of default and declared to file a similar case in a different court in the US. He plans to bring the $2.5 billion claim against GLAS Trust and agencies that facilitate it. The whole amount of $533 million was still in an account, he said. The money that exited OCI into the Revere capital and then the parent company Think & Learn Pvt Ltd, according to him, was transferred to the Byju entities.
Think & learn used the funds in acquiring companies to the tune of $3 billion, such as the acquisition of Aakash Educational Services. Raveendran further argued that there was a money trail as indicated by documents where GLAS Trust made submissions. He filed a petition at the Delaware Bankruptcy Court to correct damages, as he termed it.
Raveendran claimed that the court had included a damages award as a sanction order on the late production of documents. He said that GLAS Trust had dropped its claims for damages several months before and that there was no judgment of liability.
Byju stated that they will provide evidence that will include bank statements, emails, and transfer records. These documents, according to the company, were generated in the US proceedings, which were not made public in full. Raveendran said that he will present this evidence in the US courts to prove his argument that the money was not stolen.
One of the litigation advisors to Raveendran claimed that GLAS Trust had misled the Delaware Court by indicating that it had no clarity on how to use the proceeds of loans. The consultant claimed that the Resolution Professional who handled the Think and Learn case had made similar assertions in the Indian court documents.