Indian-origin executive settles charges with SEC

Another charged for making false claims

An Indian-origin executive has settled charges with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for overstating the company’s subscriber base, while another Indian-origin person was charged for making similar misrepresentations.

Hari Ravichandran, 42 former chief executive of web hosting company Endurance International Group Holdings and former chief financial officer Waruna Ellawala knowingly provided inflated subscriber figures for the Massachusetts-based online marketing company, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said. Ravichandran, a resident of Boston, had founded Endurance in 1997 and served as the company’s Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors. The SEC also filed a complaint in US District Court in Massachusetts alleging that former Constant Contact CFO Harpreet Grewal, 51, hid its slowing customer growth from investors and inflated its publicly reported subscriber numbers. Constant Contact became a subsidiary of Endurance after it was acquired by it in 2016.

Constant Contact sold email marketing and other online marketing tools to customers primarily through subscription arrangements. SEC said Grewal defrauded Constant Contact’s investors concerning the number of paying customers for the company’s products and services, which was a key metric disclosed by Constant Contact to its investors.