Ten lawsuits were filed against Grameen Telecom founding Chairman and Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Managing Director Ashraful Hassan, for failing to pay dividends to employees of the company for profits earned in the last 10 years.
Ten former and current employees of the telecom company filed separate cases with Dhaka Labour Court-3 against the two officials.
They alleged that Grameen Telecom, which holds a roughly one-third stake in Bangladesh’s largest mobile-phone operator, had a legal obligation to share profits with its employees, but the company did not pay the dividends during the period between 2006 and 2015.
Following an admissibility hearing, all the cases were accepted by Dhaka Labour Court-3 Judge Sultan Mahmud. He would issue a summons asking the two defendants to appear before the court later, said court staff member Jamal Uddin.
The petitioners’ lawyer Jafarul Hasan Sharif said the accused had flouted the Bangladesh Labour Act 2006 by refusing to pay dividends to workers from its profits earned during the period under review.
“Under labour laws, the company must share five percent of its net profits with its employees and the government,” the lawyer said.
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