Evaly’s new board to take charge Thursday

The new board of directors that includes Evaly co-founder and former chairman Shamima Nasreen, her mother and brother-in-law and others will take charge of the beleaguered e-commerce platform Thursday.

The move comes following a High Court order passed by the bench of Justice Muhammad Khurshid Alam Sarkar late last month.

The court-appointed board of directors, a five-member team led by former Justice HM Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik, submitted their resignations to the court on Wednesday.

Justice Shamsuddin told The Business Standard that the court-appointed outgoing board, in compliance with their terms of reference, has also submitted an audit report on Evaly that failed to clear its huge liabilities to customers and merchants.

Mahbub Kabir, the outgoing managing director of Evaly, said the court-appointed board could not fully ascertain the firm's liabilities due to poor bookkeeping, lack of documents and very importantly due to no access to its server.

However, fund injection would be a must to revive Evaly and keep it afloat. Kabir assumes that the needed funds should be a gigantic sum.

It was on 10 August that Shamima appealed to the court-appointed board for restarting the infamous platform's operations.

She had asked to include herself, her mother and her sister's husband on the board of directors in the application.

Also, out of the 50% shares of the company, Shamima had already transferred 20% shares to the names of her mother and brother-in-law, the application further added.

As per the instructions of the HC, the new board of directors has been asked to appoint an official from the commerce ministry as an independent director for Evaly. 

The ministry official cannot hold any position lower than that of a joint secretary. The new board will also have a representative from the e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB). 

Launched on 16 December 2018, Evaly pretended to be driven by dreams to build an Amazon or Alibaba of Bangladesh, grew too big riding on a dangerous business model and offering abnormal discounts to attract huge customers, taking advances from them and delivering products months later. 

It was apparent that the firm was depending on the fresh flow of advances from customers to clear the previous bills and running the business was synonymous with increasing the liabilities of the firm, identical to a Ponzi scheme.

It all happened before the regulators, policymakers addressed the risk of the widening liabilities of the business and an increasing number of people being trapped there.

Following a petition filed by a customer, the HC on 22 September last year put a moratorium on the sale or transfer of all movable and immovable properties of Evaly.

The court also issued a ruling, asking why a liquidator should not be appointed to wind down the e-commerce platform immediately.

The court on 18 October 2021 formed a four-member new board to manage, control, and assess the liabilities of the e-commerce platform.

According to Evaly's own assessment, it has assets of only Tk121 crore, while it owes customers and merchants more than Tk1,000 crore.

On 15 September last year, an Evaly customer filed a case with Gulshan Police Station against Mohammad Rassel and his wife Shamima Nasrin, erstwhile chairman of Evaly, on allegations of fraud and embezzlement.

The Rapid Action Battalion arrested Rassel and his wife Shamima Nasrin in a raid of their residence in the capital's Mohammadpur area the day after the case was filed.

On 6 April, Shamima Nasrin was released on bail after spending six months in jail, but her husband Rassel has still remained behind bars.