US charges Adani in over $250 million bribery scheme

The US Justice Department on Thursday charged billionaire and Adani group chairman Gautam Adani with orchestrating a more than $250 million bribery scheme that involved paying or promising to pay off Indian government officials to land lucrative solar-energy supply contracts.

Prosecutors in the US issued a 54-page indictment that claimed Adani and other defendants met with Indian officials, promising to pay $265 million, or about ?2,029 crore, to secure contracts worth billions, and did not disclose the plan as they sought to raise money from investors in the US.

The indictment also charges Adani’s nephew, Sagar R. Adani, and Vneet S. Jaain, both senior executives at an Indian renewable-energy firm (which the Justice Department indictment did not name), of breaking federal laws.

The prosecutors also alleged that four of the eight defendants conspired to obstruct justice by erasing electronic evidence and lying to representatives of the US Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The SEC, which issued the detailed charges in a separate lawsuit against Adani, Sagar and Cyril Sebastien Dominique Cabanes (a co-defendant), identified the company that was not named in the Justice Department’s indictment as Adani Green Energy Ltd.

The SEC alleged that another company involved in the power plant project, Azure Power Global Ltd, agreed to pay some of the bribes.

Cabanes was a director on Azure’s board and a representative of Canadian pension fund Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec (CDPQ), its biggest shareholder, the SEC lawsuit said.

The four defendants other than Adani, Sagar, Vneet Jaain, who is the CEO of Adani Green Energy, and Cabanes, are Ranjit Gupta, who was CEO of Azure Power Global in 2019-22; Rupesh Agarwal, who also worked with Azure Power (between 2022-23); and CDPQ’s Saurabh Agarwal and Deepak Malhotra.

Shares of Adani group plunged in intraday trading on Thursday, while the broader markets declined.

Adani group denies wrongdoing

The Adani group, meanwhile, has refuted the charges, saying it will seek legal recourse.

“Allegations made by the US Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission against directors of Adani Green are baseless and denied,” it said in a statement.

“As stated by the US Department of Justice itself, the charges in the indictment are allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven

guilty.” All possible legal recourse will be sought,” it said.

“The Adani Group has always upheld and is steadfastly committed to maintaining the highest standards of governance, transparency and regulatory compliance across all jurisdictions of its operations. We assure our stakeholders, partners and employees that we are a law-abiding organisation, fully compliant with all laws,” it added.

The Adani group also abruptly cancelled a $600 million dollar bond sale, in the wake of the bribery charges against the company’s founder on Thursday.

“The US Department of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission have issued a criminal indictment and brought a civil complaint, respectively, in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, against our board members Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani. The US Department of Justice have also included our board member, Vneet Jain, in such an indictment. In light of these developments, our subsidiaries have presently decided not to proceed with the proposed USD dominated bond offering,” Adani Group’s green energy arm said in an exchange filing.

The latest charges by the Department of Justice and the SEC come after Adani group stocks had recouped losses sustained following the release of a report by US short seller Hindenburg Research in January 2023, accusing the conglomerate of accounting fraud and stock price manipulation, charges that the company had denied.

The indictment also comes as Joe Biden is set to demit office in January and President-elect Donald Trump is set to take charge.

The case is expected to drag on for months, with Breon Peace, the US attorney that Biden had appointed, likely to be replaced by Trump to head the Eastern District of New York, one of the 94 US district courts that handle federal cases and controversies in their respective areas.

Adani had congratulated Trump following his election win on 5 November, calling the latter an “embodiment of unbreakable tenacity, unshakable grit, relentless determination and the courage to stay true to his beliefs.”

In a post on X later, he committed to invest $10 billion in the US and create about 10,000 jobs in that country.

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