A lawsuit accuses IIT-Kharagpur alumnus and InfoUSA CEO Vinod Gupta of ‘wasting corporate resources’ for flying the Clintons around the world in his personal jet, gifting the presidential library in Arkansas and donating during Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign.
A lawsuit accuses IIT-Kharagpur alumnus and InfoUSA CEO Vinod Gupta of ‘wasting corporate resources’ for flying the Clintons around the world in his personal jet, gifting the presidential library in Arkansas and donating during Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign.
Up until now, IIT-Kharagpur alumnus and InfoUSA CEO Vinod Gupta’s previous philanthropic ventures have only won him accolades – in 1992, he donated $2 million to IIT Kharagapur to set up the Vinod Gupta School of Management and later donated $1 million for the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law at the same campus. In his hometown of Saharanpur in UP, he has set up a women’s polytechnic institute.
The institute was inaugurated by former US President Bill Clinton, a sign of the clout that Gupta wields with the Clintons. And it is this clout that has landed the media-friendly chairman and chief executive of the $600 million database compiler company in trouble.
Gupta has spent $9,00,000 flying the Clintons around the world in his personal jet, secured a $3.3 million consulting contract for the ex-President with his firm, gifted $2,50,000 to his presidential library in Arkansas and donated more than $2,00,000 to the Democratic Party during Hillary’s 2000 Senate campaign. That donation earned him a night at the Lincoln bedroom at the White House the same year.
That largess has put Gupta on the receiving end of a shareholder lawsuit that accuses him of “wasting corporate resources”, a Washington Post report says.
The lawsuit, filed in Delaware state, challenges Gupta’s decision to direct his firm to pay the former president the consulting fees for the “extremely vague purpose” of providing his “strategic growth and business judgment.” The lawsuit also mentions that that air travel for the Clintons was charged to the company as “business development” expenses. “The company jet took them to vacation spots, whisked Bill Clinton to an international conference in Geneva and to a commemorative speech in Oklahoma City and shuttled Hillary to a campaign fundraiser in New Mexico,” the report said.
In return for his donations and gifts — including a $200,000 cheque for a speech the former president gave to InfoUSA executives in Nebraska — Gupta was offered the post of US ambassador to Fiji and US Consul General to Bermuda. Gupta declined both offers. However, in his last week as US President, Bill Clinton appointed him to the prestigious John F Kennedy Board of Trustees.
However, three investor groups in InfoUSA feel that the donations are now a matter to be decided in court. The lawsuit, however, does not name the Clintons.
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