US Federal Court Indicts Gautam Adani in Bribery Case
Image credit X @AdaniOne
Indictment Trails Solar Energy Project Bribery Probe
By Raisina Correspondent
New Delhi, November 21: A US Federal Court indicted Gautam Adani and others in a bribery case to secure solar energy contracts. The indictment charges claimed that more than $250 million in bribes were “promised to Indian government officials to secure solar energy contracts”.
“A five-count criminal indictment was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging Gautam S. Adani, Sagar R. Adani and Vneet S. Jaain, executives of an Indian renewable-energy company (the Indian Energy Company),” said the office of the Attorney of the Justice Department of the US in a media statement.
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It alleged “conspiracies to commit securities and wire fraud and substantive securities fraud for their roles in a multi-billion-dollar scheme to obtain funds from U.S. investors and global financial institutions on the basis of false and misleading statements”. Also, the indictment charges Ranjit Gupta and Rupesh Agarwal, former executives of a renewable-energy company with securities that had traded on the New York Stock Exchange (the U.S. Issuer), and Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal and Deepak Malhotra, former employees of a Canadian institutional investor, with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with a bribery scheme.
The indictment charges against Adani came within days of Bangladesh High Court also ordering probe in the power purchase agreement with Adani Power. Earlier, reports had accused the Adani Group of malpractices in obtaining contracts in Sri Lanka.
The Adani Group had also been mired in controversies on the back of revelations of the US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research that the entities indulged in stock price manipulations.
The Justice Department of the US alleged that “Gautam S. Adani, Sagar R. Adani and Vneet S. Jaain, perpetrated the bribery scheme involving one of the world’s largest solar energy projects”.
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The charges against the Indian billionaire who at one time recently had climbed to the third richest tag in the world were unveiled by Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Lisa H. Miller, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and James E. Dennehy, Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI) announced the charges.
“As alleged, the defendants orchestrated an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars and Gautam S. Adani, Sagar R. Adani and Vneet S. Jaain lied about the bribery scheme as they sought to raise capital from U.S. and international investors,” stated United States Attorney Peace.
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The charges further claimed “schemes to pay over $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials, to lie to investors and banks to raise billions of dollars, and to obstruct justice”. It has also been alleged that “offenses were allegedly committed by senior executives and directors to obtain and finance massive state energy supply contracts through corruption and fraud at the expense of U.S. investors”.
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