BlackRock faces $20 million lawsuit from whistleblowing ex-Vice President

BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager is in hot water with a $20 million lawsuit filed by their former vice president, Hamdan Azhar.

He claims he got fired after speaking up about a colleague's shady dealings and being told to shut down a project that kept tabs on client discussions about sketchy investments, including in China.

Azhar, says that in March 2022, BlackRock told him to stop working on Trend Spotter, a tool he created, and hand over his projects to Rightpoint, where his former boss Tiffany Perkins-Munn's husband worked.

He says his persistent objections to a $2 million contract given to Rightpoint, which he called "shady business," got him fired two months later.

He started developing Trend Spotter in March 2021 during a company event and says it got a lot of attention and praise at BlackRock.

He argues that his firing was payback and not because of his work, as BlackRock claims. But a BlackRock spokesperson denies Azhar's claims, saying, "Trend Spotter was just for summarising client interactions for marketing. It didn't keep an eye on investments and had no compliance features."

Apart from BlackRock, the lawsuit also involves Perkins-Munn and Azhar's new boss, Riaz Hakkim.

Azhar says Hakkim refused to take his concerns about client discussions that Trend Spotter could have monitored seriously, which he thinks were important for BlackRock's public disclosures.

Despite BlackRock's stance, Azhar's lawyer, Subhan Tariq, points out that Azhar was being considered for a top role at BlackRock AI Labs, showing his value to the company.

This lawsuit comes at a time when the bipartisan House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party is looking into whether BlackRock and index provider MSCI helped funnel money into blacklisted Chinese companies.

The committee found that Wall Street directed $6.5 billion in 2023 into 63 Chinese companies flagged by the US government for supporting China's military or committing human rights abuses through index funds.

While not against the law, the committee has called for tighter controls on such investments, and BlackRock says it follows US laws.

Azhar, who joined BlackRock in February 2020 as head of data science for global marketing, is seeking $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages for breaking state labour laws.

Perkins-Munn works at JPMorgan Chase and Hakkim at Fidelity Investments. Neither company has responded to requests for comment.

(With inputs from Reuters)