Gautam Adani indictment: In-depth coverage

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

A U.S. court indicted billionaire Gautam Adani and seven others including his nephew Sagar and three other executives on charges of fraud and bribery. The case pertained to a deal between Adani Green Energy and a U.S. seller for 12 gigawatts of solar power to be sold to various States. The charges came on a day when the firm planned a green bond launch in the US. The Adani subsidiary eventually cancelled the sale.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Mr. Adani, founder and chairman of the Adani Group, with allegedly defrauding American investors and bribing officials. The SEC alleged that the bribery scheme was orchestrated to enable renewable energy companies Adani Green and Azure Power to capitalise on a multi-billion-dollar solar energy project awarded by the Indian government. The complaint charges them with violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws and seeks permanent injunctions, civil penalties, and officer and director bars.

Adani’s stocks nosedived as reports of a possible arrest of one of India’s richest businessmen loomed large. The Congress, which has repeatedly sought a JPC probe into the “Adani Mega Scam,” said its stand has been vindicated. The BJP, however, questioned the timing of the indictment.

This is not the first time Mr. Adani is facing a legal tussle overseas. There are at least six other deals such as the Carmichael coal mine project in Australia, and Sri Lanka’s windpower project.

U.S.-based short-seller Hindenburg Research in 2023 accused the Adani conglomerate of improper extensive use of entities set up in offshore tax havens and expressed concern about high debt levels. It followed up with another report this year alleging that SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband had undisclosed investments in obscure offshore funds in Bermuda and Mauritius, the same entities allegedly used by Vinod Adani to round-trip funds and inflate stock prices.