Uber’s Senior Vice President of Engineering Amit Singhal (pictured above) was asked to resign from his job on Monday for failing to inform the company about a sexual harassment allegation made against him while he worked at Google. Uber, which was informed of the allegations against Singhal by technology website Recode, reportedly did not know about it despite conducting extensive background checks before hiring him.

In a statement to Recode, Singhal – who was hired in January – denied the allegations against him and said the decision to leave Google was his own. “Harassment is unacceptable in any setting,” he said. “I certainly want everyone to know that I do not condone and have not committed such behavior. In my 20-year career, I’ve never been accused of anything like this before.”

The employee who had filed the complaint against Singhal did not publicly declare the charges, according to Google officials who spoke to Recode. Singhal, who had worked as their head of search, resigned before he could be fired by the Mountain View, California, based company.

Uber’s decision to remove Singhal comes as the company deals with the fallout of several allegations of sexual harassment and systemic sexism made against it by a former engineer with the company. In a blog post, Susan Fowler said her first manager had sent her messages saying that “he was looking for women to have sex with”. The former employee also detailed other incidents at the company, including sexist behaviour by HR department employees as well as team managers.

Early investors in the ride-hailing company have called on it to change its “destructive culture”. In a letter, Mitch and Freada Kapor said Uber’s success as a company could not “excuse a culture plagued by disrespect, exclusionary cliques, lack of diversity, and tolerance for bullying and harassment”.

The company has instituted an inquiry into the allegations led by former United States Attorney General Eric Holder.