Evaly chair appeals to High Court to restart business

The controversial ecommerce platform Evaly's Chairman Shamima Nasrin on Wednesday appealed to the High Court, seeking its permission to revive the business.

In the petition to the court of Justice Muhammad Khurshid Alam Sharker, she said they had found investors and wanted to operate the company on their own.

Shamima also promised to pay back the money Evaly owes its customers and vendors after reviving the business, her lawyer advocate Ahsanul Karim told the media.

The hearing on the petition was held on Wednesday.

Lawyer Ahsanul Karim said another application was also filed, seeking directives for not harassing Shamima and Rassel by filling another case.

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 fresh flow of advances from customers to clear the previous bills and running the business was synonymous to 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 Tk1000 crore.