Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – BlackRock is sued for $20 million by a former vice president who blew the whistle for firing a co-worker for opposing self-trading, and searches to monitor customer discussions about illegal investments The engine had to be shut down. In China.
In a complaint filed Saturday, Hamdan Azhar claims that a major asset management firm ceased work on the Trend Spotter he developed in March 2022 and that the husband of former company president Tiffany Perkinsman worked there. He said he ordered the project to be transferred to LitePoint.
The Brooklyn resident said he was fired two months later because he persistently opposed a $2 million contract that BlackRock awarded to LitePoint as “illegal self-dealing” before Perkinsman himself resigned. .
He also said his new boss, Riaz Hakkim, had discussions with clients that TrendSpotter may have tracked and that the disclosures were consistent with BlackRock’s public disclosures to investors and regulators. He said he refused to raise concerns about whether or not.
Azhar said he began developing Trend Spotter in March 2021 as a “hackathon” project and received “widespread attention and acclaim” within BlackRock.
The New York-based firm had $10.5 trillion in assets under management at the end of the March period.
A BlackRock spokesperson called Azhar’s accusations “completely without merit” and said he was fired for poor performance and unprofessional conduct. “Allegations that BlackRock engaged in illegal investments are absurd,” the spokesperson added.
Azhar’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
Last summer, the bipartisan House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party began seeking information about whether BlackRock and index provider MSCI facilitated investments in blacklisted Chinese companies.
In April, the commission revealed that Wall Street funneled $6.5 billion in 2023 through index fund investments to 63 Chinese companies that were reported by the U.S. government for supporting China’s military and human rights abuses. I made it.
The committee called on Congress to pass legislation restricting such investments. BlackRock and MSCI deny wrongdoing and say they complied with existing U.S. law.
Azhar said he joined BlackRock in February 2020 as head of data science for global marketing.
He is seeking $10 million each in compensatory and punitive damages in New York state court in Manhattan for violating state labor laws.
Mr. Perkinsman and Mr. Hakkim are also defendants, and the complaint says they currently work for JPMorgan Chase and Fidelity Investments, respectively. Neither company responded to requests for comment.
The case is Azhar v. BlackRock, Inc., New York State Supreme Court, New York County.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Margherita Choi)
