The Daily Corporate Desk
Dhaka, 23 September 2026: A Dhaka court has issued arrest warrants against Foodpanda Bangladesh Co-founder and Managing Director Syeda Ambareen Reza and four other senior officials in two cases alleging fraud, forgery and embezzlement of around Tk3.8 crore.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Jashita Islam issued the warrants on Wednesday after accepting investigation reports submitted by Gulshan Police, according to the complainant’s lawyer.
The other individuals named in the warrants are Foodpanda Co-founder and Director Zubayer Siddiqui, Pandamart Director Md Tabrez Khan, Head of Category Dilara Faruk, and Senior Manager Mohammad Sajedul Haque.
Dispute began with supplier relationship
The cases were filed on 3 July 2025 by businessman Shihab Mahmud Bashir, who said he had been supplying locally produced and imported fruits and vegetables to Pandamart, a Foodpanda affiliate.
According to the case statements, the business relationship began under an agreement signed on 23 June 2022. The complainant alleged that payments were initially made regularly but later became irregular, with substantial amounts allegedly withheld from him.
The complaint alleges that against purchase orders worth Tk1 lakh, payments as low as Tk1 to Tk100 were deposited in some instances.
It further alleges that signatures were forged and fabricated “Return to Vendor” (RTV) documents were prepared to make it appear that goods had been returned, allowing payments to be withheld. The two cases allege that approximately Tk3.8 crore was misappropriated through such practices.
Police investigations led to court action
Following the filing of the cases, the court directed Gulshan Police Station to investigate the allegations.
Police subsequently submitted investigation reports to the court. The complainant’s lawyer said the reports found preliminary evidence supporting the allegations, after which the court accepted the reports and issued the arrest warrants.
The warrants, however, do not represent a final determination of guilt. The allegations remain subject to the judicial process.
Foodpanda disputes the criminal allegations
Foodpanda’s parent-side entity Delivery Hero Stores (Bangladesh) has rejected the allegations against its employees.
In a statement issued after the court order, the company said the cases arose from an ongoing commercial dispute involving dishonoured cheques and payments it says were owed to Delivery Hero Stores.
The company said it would contest the allegations through the appropriate legal process and maintained that its employees had not engaged in conduct amounting to a criminal offence. It also said the accused employees had already obtained anticipatory bail from the High Court.
Wider dispute involves additional cases
There is also a broader legal dispute surrounding the business relationship.
TBS reported that the officials are facing four criminal cases connected to the commercial dispute, with allegations involving fraud, embezzlement, forgery and intimidation. The company, however, has argued that the cases are essentially commercial in nature and said police reports in two of those cases did not establish criminal wrongdoing by its employees.
Other reports have described the two cases considered by the court on Wednesday as involving alleged embezzlement of approximately Tk3.8 crore.
The conflicting descriptions reflect the wider dispute, but the latest court action places Foodpanda’s senior management directly within an ongoing judicial process.
What happens next?
With the High Court bail already secured, the five officials are not immediately facing detention solely on the basis of Wednesday’s warrants, according to the company statement.
The cases will now proceed through the judicial process, where the allegations, investigation findings and the defence’s arguments will be considered before any final determination is made.
For Foodpanda, the dispute has moved beyond a private supplier-payment disagreement and into a formal legal process involving several members of the company’s senior management.
Source: The Business Standard, The Daily Star, Daily Sun
