Bengaluru: Byju Raveendran has been sentenced to six months in prison by a Singapore court in contempt proceedings linked to asset disclosure orders, according to people familiar with the matter. He has been directed to begin serving the sentence on June 15, the people said.The development comes after Bloomberg reported that the Singapore court found the Byju’s founder guilty of contempt for disobeying multiple court orders related to his assets.Soon after the report, Raveendran posted on X claiming that lenders including GLAS Trust and Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), along with founders and stakeholders, had reached an “in-principle” settlement. He said only minor residual issues remained between certain parties.Raveendran also claimed that parties involved in the discussions had acknowledged there was “no wrongdoing” by him or other founders. However, people familiar with the lenders’ position disputed those claims.“There is no agreement between Byju and the lenders. There is no acknowledgment that there has been no wrongdoing on Byju’s part or on the part of the other founders,” a source familiar with the lenders said.QIA sharply disputed Raveendran’s claims around settlement discussions. “QIA was pleased by the result of the contempt hearing in Singapore,” a QIA spokesperson told TOI, adding that the six-month prison sentence arose from Raveendran’s “serious wrongdoing,” including alleged violation of a global freezing order on his assets. The sovereign wealth fund also rejected his claim that the proceedings were being used as a pressure tactic and said that while settlement discussions had taken place, “no settlement appears achievable.”The Singapore proceedings are part of a wider dispute involving Qatar Holding, an arm of QIA, which had extended a $150 million loan to Byju’s investment vehicle BIPL in 2022 to help purchase shares in Aakash Educational Services.The loan was personally guaranteed by Raveendran. Qatar Holding later alleged that shares linked to the transaction were transferred to another Singapore entity controlled by him in violation of the agreement.A Singapore tribunal subsequently awarded about $235 million plus interest in favour of Qatar Holding. The matter later spilled into courts in Singapore and India.In another post on X, Raveendran described the Singapore case as a “procedural contempt of court order” linked to document disclosure disputes. He said the matter did not involve “a finding of fraud, dishonesty, or any wrongdoing on the merits”.The latest setback adds to mounting legal troubles for the once high-flying edtech founder.At its peak in 2022, Byju’s was valued at $22 billion and had raised more than $4 billion from global investors. The company expanded aggressively during and after the pandemic, acquiring firms including Aakash Educational Services, Great Learning, WhiteHat Jr and Epic.But the rapid expansion was followed by delayed financial filings, mounting losses, auditor exits and disputes with lenders tied to Byju’s $1.2 billion term loan B raised in the US in 2021.The company is now battling insolvency proceedings in India while also facing multiple legal disputes across jurisdictions. In the US, Byju’s and entities linked to Raveendran are fighting claims tied to the alleged movement of $533 million from the loan proceeds, allegations that he has denied.Raveendran has maintained that the funds were used for legitimate business purposes and that neither he nor other founders personally benefitted from them.
