The High Court (HC) on Tuesday allowed the court-appointed Board of Directors of the controversial e-commerce company Evaly Limited to appoint any renowned audit firm instead of KPMG (Rahman Rahman Huq) to carry out an audit of the company.
The HC bench of Justice Muhammad Khurshid Alam Sarkar passed the order after hearing a petition filed by Md Mahbub Kabir Milon, court-appointed managing director of the company.
Earlier on October 18 in 2021, the same HC bench in an order asked Evaly directors to appoint KPMG (Rahman Rahman Huq) at its earliest convenience to carry out an audit of the company.
Upon perusal and consideration of the auditor’s reports, the board was directed to make its own findings and observations about the role of the former directors, MDs, CEOs, auditors and other officials of Evaly on the collection of money from the general people.
Following the direction, the court-appointed Board of Directors communicated with the KPMG for carrying out the audit. But the firm demanded Tk 8.6 million for the audit.
In this circumstance the board on January 16 filed a petition with the High Court seeking modification in its earlier order that asked to carry out the audit by the KPMG.
The board said, “Audit firm KPMG has quoted an amount of Tk 8.6 million only as their net professional fees for conducting the audit. The respondent company is not in a position to bear the said professional fees of KPMG.”
In response to the petition, the HC asked the board to negotiate with the KPMG to reduce the fees. But the audit firm did not reduce the fees. As such, the board filed another petition on January 25 with the High Court seeking modification in the order passed on October 18 in 2021 so that the company can carry out the audit by any renowned firm. After hearing, the court allowed the petition.
Now the board is free to appoint any firm to conduct the audit, said the concerned lawyers.
Lawyer Morshed Ahmed Khan appeared in the court on behalf of the Evaly board of directors, while Barrister Syed Mahsib Hossain appeared for the customers of the company.
The court on October 18 in 2021 formed a 5-member body to oversee the overall management and the company affairs of Evaly Limited.
The court appointed justice Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik, a former judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, as the chairman of the company and Mahbub Kabir Milon, an additional secretary of the government, as the ex officio managing director.
