Key Highlights:

• Former Binance executive Amrita Srivastava sues the exchange in the UK, alleging wrongful dismissal after reporting bribery within the company.
• Binance denies the claims, linking her firing to performance issues and not whistleblowing, but the allegations add to the company’s growing legal troubles.

Did Binance’s internal chaos just hit a new low? Former exec Amrita Srivastava says “yes” and is suing the crypto giant in the UK for wrongful dismissal. Her claims involve whistleblowing about alleged bribery by a colleague and paint a picture of dysfunction inside Binance during one of its most turbulent periods.

Srivastava alleges that she was fired for exposing a colleague who solicited a bribe from a client to fast-track integration into Binance’s platform. The bribe was reportedly disguised as a “consultation fee,” with the employee posing as an external contractor.

The Allegations: Bribery and Backlash

Srivastava joined Binance in 2022 after a stint at Mastercard, only to find herself thrust into what she describes as a pressure cooker. She claims the company was scrambling to recover lost revenue after severing ties with a client linked to Iran.

Amid this chaos, a UK-based client informed Srivastava they had paid her colleague under questionable circumstances to ensure smoother platform operations. Taking the moral high ground, she reported the misconduct in April 2023. By May, she was out of a job.

In her tribunal filing, she didn’t mince words:

“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.”

Binance Pushes Back

Binance categorically denies Srivastava’s claims, insisting her dismissal was based on poor performance and unrelated to her whistleblowing. The company also noted that the accused employee is no longer with Binance and that the bribery issue was already under internal investigation.

A Binance spokesperson said:

“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.”

Despite the rebuttal, Srivastava maintains that her career has taken a severe hit due to her decision to speak up.

More Legal Storms Brewing

Srivastava’s claims come at a challenging time for Binance. The company recently agreed to pay a record $4.3 billion penalty in the U.S. for anti-money laundering and sanctions violations.

Meanwhile, it’s also battling a lawsuit from the FTX estate, which accuses Binance and CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao of orchestrating a $1.76 billion “fraudulent transfer.”

FTX’s lawsuit alleges that Binance sold its stake in FTX’s operations in 2021 using funds from Alameda Research, which was insolvent at the time. Binance has dismissed the claims as “meritless” and vowed to fight them in court.

The Bigger Picture

While Binance tries to weather its mounting legal woes, Srivastava’s whistleblower case could set a precedent for how the crypto industry handles internal misconduct. If she wins, the uncapped compensation in UK whistleblowing cases could sting, potentially forcing Binance to rethink its internal governance.