Nikesh Arora gets clean chit in probe for foul play in Oyo, Housing investments

Some SoftBank investors had alleged conflict of interest in Arora's decisions

Nikesh Arora, president and chief operating officer of SoftBank, has been given a clean chit in a probe into alleged foul play in the firm's investments in Indian start-ups Oyo Rooms and Housing.com.

Masayoshi Son, billionaire chief executive officer of Softbank, who had come out in support of Arora when a group of investors asked the board to investigate and possibly dismiss the latter, reiterated his trust in the India-born executive.

“As I said when these allegations first became public, I have complete trust in Nikesh and I am pleased the special committee has looked into these claims thoroughly and concluded they are without merit,” Son said.

A special committee, constituting independent members of the SoftBank Group board of directors, said it found no merit in claims concerning Arora’s conduct. The committee was set up in February after a group of SoftBank investors submitted a 11-page letter against Arora.

“The allegations had been raised in a number of letters from a law firm, which claimed to represent the interests of certain unidentified SBG and Sprint Corporation shareholders,” read a statement from SoftBank.

The letter said Arora had a clear conflict of interest and suggested that he might have been involved in wrongdoing. Arora's decision to sink the bank's money into Indian the start-ups was also questioned in the letter.

“Despite these issues, the board saw fit to make Arora the third-highest paid executive in the world without any track record of accomplishment at the company,” wrote Matthew Schwartz, partner at New York law firm Boies Schiller & Flexner, which was representing the undisclosed group of SoftBank investors.