A Dhaka court on Wednesday issued arrest warrants against five officials of Foodpanda Bangladesh, including co-founder and managing director Syeda Ambareen Reza, in two cases alleging fraud, forgery and embezzlement. The company's parent says all five have since obtained bail from the High Court, denies any criminal conduct, and describes the underlying matter as a commercial dispute.
A warrant is not a finding of guilt. Nothing has been tried, and none of the allegations below has been tested in court. They are set out here as allegations, with the company's response alongside.
What the court ordered
Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Jashita Islam issued the warrants after accepting investigation reports filed by Gulshan police in two cases. Sub-inspector Md Moshiur Rahman submitted the report in one, and sub-inspector Md Sakhawat Hossain in the other; The Daily Star reports both were filed in June and July this year. Kazi Mafizul Islam, lawyer for the complainant, confirmed the orders.
Besides the managing director, those named are co-founder and director Zubayer Siddiqui, head of category Dilara Faruk, director of delivery Md Tabarez Khan, an Indian national, and senior manager and director Mohammad Sajedul Haque.
What the complaint alleges
The cases were filed on 3 July last year by businessman Shihab Mahmud Bashir, who supplied goods to pandamart, Foodpanda's quick-commerce arm. The three newspapers identify his concern differently — New Age names Protein and Perishable, The Daily Star names IPEl Distribution Network, and The Business Standard names First Tele Sales Company importing through IPLE Electronics — which suggests more than one supply line is involved across the cases.
By New Age's account the supply was of local and imported fruit and vegetables from June 2022, payments were regular at first, and the alleged irregularities came later: against purchase orders worth Tk 1 lakh, sums of between Tk 1 and Tk 100 were deposited into his account. The complaint also alleges that money was taken by recording goods as returned and preparing "Return to Vendor" slips carrying the signatures of fictitious people, at several locations on the same day. The two cases put the sum at roughly Tk 3.8 crore.
The Business Standard describes a second strand: household and kitchen goods and mobile accessories supplied between June 2022 and September 2024 worth about Tk 2.5 crore, of which about Tk 1.5 crore was paid and close to Tk 1 crore was not; roughly Tk 10 lakh deducted for VAT, tax and advertising in breach of the agreement; and an allegation that when the complainant sent a representative to ask for payment in June last year, he was threatened. Across four cases, that paper puts the figure at nearly Tk 6 crore.
What Foodpanda's side says
Delivery Hero Stores, the Foodpanda affiliate that responded, said it respects and complies with the laws of Bangladesh and the judicial process, and that it will contest the allegations, holding that its employees have not engaged in conduct amounting to a criminal offence. It called the warrants "a procedural step in such cases" and said bail for all the employees had already been obtained from the High Court.
Its account of the origin of the cases is very different from the complainant's. The company says the four criminal cases were brought amid an ongoing commercial dispute over dishonoured cheques issued by the complainant, with money still owed to Delivery Hero Stores, and that this context "strongly suggests" the cases are retaliatory — an attempt to deflect his own liability by pressuring senior management. It also says the same police station investigated all four cases and that two of the reports found no criminal element and established that it is the complainant who owes money. It says it remains committed to establishing in court that the dispute is contractual, with no criminal liability on its employees.
Why it matters here
Foodpanda is one of the largest technology employers and platforms in Bangladesh, and pandamart sits between thousands of suppliers and millions of orders. Whatever the outcome, the case turns on something mundane and widespread: how a platform records deliveries, returns and deductions, and what a supplier can prove when the two ledgers disagree.
The shape is familiar. In September 2021, at the height of the e-commerce collapse, a supplier sued Evaly's chief executive, his wife and 25 other officials over money owed. That episode ended in a national reckoning over governance in digital commerce. This is a different company in a different position, and the allegations here are contested and unproven — but the pressure point is the same one, and it has not been fixed in five years.
The company response quoted above is from the statement Delivery Hero Stores issued to news outlets on 23 September. This report will be updated as the cases proceed.
