If you’ve been reading TC Daily (*expectant look👀*), you’ll know that some employees of the fintech unicorn Moniepoint have been smiling at their account balance lately, thanks to stock option cashouts that shook the ecosystem.
But while some were cashing out, one former employee was battling what he claims was a malicious action by Moniepoint to deny him of his stock options.
You need to be seated for this☕: Damilola Ajiboye, a former executive of Nigerian fintech unicorn Moniepoint, has filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming that he was denied $889,600 worth of stock options.
He says that when he joined in 2016, he was promised stock options if he stayed for five years. He did, and in 2019, it became official with the offer of 32,000 executive stock options managed by Stanbic IBTC Trustees. By 2021, he had even successfully sold 4,200 of them during a liquidity event. Smooth sailing, right?
Things began to fall apart after he resigned in December 2021, officially leaving on January 9, 2022. Then, a new stock option management system, Carta, was introduced—it informed him he had only 3 months (until April 9, 2022) to use the rest of his stock options. But he only got access to his Carta account five days before the deadline.
He said, they said: Ajiboye argues that the five-day deadline was unfair, and that he received assurance from a Moniepoint executive that the window for using stock options would be extended by two years, which influenced his decision not to rush the process. On the other hand, Moniepoint maintains that Ajiboye was fully aware of the stock option terms and that five days was a sufficient window to take action.
Zoom out: This case is pulling back the curtain on how stock options are handled in startups, and depending on how the court rules, it just might force companies to rethink how they treat their employees when it’s time to share the pie.
All eyes on the court. This one’s just getting started.
