The reprieve from the Hindenburg Research controversy has proven to be quite short-lived for the Adanis. Just as the group managed to move past allegations of stock market manipulation and accounting fraud levelled by the US short-seller in January last year, US prosecutors dropped a bombshell late on Wednesday.
They charged group chairman Gautam Adani and seven others with helping drive a $265 million bribery and fraud scheme under which Indian government officials were allegedly paid hush money, termed as “development fees” to win solar energy contracts. It was also alleged that the Adanis concealed the plan as they sought to raise money from US investors. The five-count indictment also accuses Adani’s nephew Sagar R Adani and Vneet S Jaain, executive director and managing director respectively of Adani Green Energy.
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The US prosecutors have claimed that the seeds for the bribery scheme involving Adani were planted between December 2019 and July 2020. Adani Green Energy and Azure Power Global listed on the New York Stock Exchange till recently won contracts with the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a state-owned company that tries to increase renewable energy use in the country. The energy was expensive for states in India, and SECI struggled to find customers to sign on. Adani and his associates, prosecutors alleged, used bribes to help convince Indian states to use their solar energy.
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“The defendants orchestrated an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars,” Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York which brought the case, said in a statement. US law allows federal prosecutors to pursue foreign corruption allegations if they involve certain links to American investors or markets.
Dismissing the charges as baseless, the Adani group said “all possible legal resource will be sought” and quoted the US Department of Justice as saying ,
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