Gautam Adani faces five-count criminal indictment in U.S. for bribery, security fraud

U.S. DoJ indicts Gautam Adani and associates for bribery, securities fraud, and wire fraud, impacting Adani Group's market value.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has issued a five-count criminal indictment of Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group, and several of his business associates. The charges include promising more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure solar energy contracts, conspiracies to commit securities and wire fraud, and orchestrating “a multi-billion dollar scheme” to defraud U.S. investors and global financial institutions by giving “false and misleading statements”. The indictment was unsealed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York late on November 20, 2024.

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In a parallel move, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also charged Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani (Gautam’s nephew and head of Adani Green Energy), along with Cyril Cabanes, a top executive of Azure Power Global Limited, (a New Delhi-headquartered renewable energy company that used to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange), with a massive bribery scheme involving Adani Green and Azure Power.

While the Department of Justice’s indictment constitutes a criminal case, the SEC’s is a civil complaint and if proved, could result in a “permanent injunction, a civil penalty, and an officer and director bar”. The SEC’s complaints were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Gautam Adani indicted in US: What do we know so far?

Reacting to these developments, Adani Green Energy Limited has withdrawn its proposed $600 million U.S. dollar denominated bond offering. Shares of Adani Group companies lost about $28 billion in market value in morning trade on Thursday (November 21, 2024.)

The indictment concerns the actions of the defendants between 2020 and 2024. The defendants are Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani, Executive Director of Adani Green Energy, Vneet S. Jaain, former CEO of Adani Green Energy, Ranjit Gupta, former CEO of Azure Power Global, Cyril Cabanes, a former managing director at CDPQ, a Canadian pension fund which is also a majority stockholder of Azure Power, Saurabh Agarwal, former managing director of CDPQ India, Deepak Malhotra, former executive of CDPQ, and Rupesh Agarwal, former CEO of Azure Power.