Gautam Adani, an Indian billionaire, got into legal trouble in New York. He and others from his company are accused of paying more than $250 million in bribes to government officials in India to win big solar energy contracts, which could have earned them over $2 billion.
Adani, his nephew Sagar, and another executive named Vneet Jaain are said to have tricked investors by not telling them about these bribes. This happened while they were getting over $3 billion from investors around the world to help pay for these solar projects.
They’re facing charges for lying to investors and breaking laws about fraud. The case is being heard in a New York court, and it also involves some former leaders and workers from other companies linked to Adani’s business.
Some people involved in this case are accused of planning to break U.S. laws that stop companies from bribing foreign officials. This is about the same bribery issue with Adani’s energy company.
Four guys, Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal, Malhotra, and Rupesh Agarwal, are also accused of trying to stop or interfere with U.S. investigations looking into these bribes.
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Even though the bribes supposedly happened in India, the case is in New York because some of the shady business happened there. This includes lying or not telling the whole truth when they were trying to get money from investors for the solar projects.
On the same day, the SEC (which looks after the stock market in the U.S.) also took legal action against Gautam Adani, his nephew, and Cabanes for this bribery. They say Adani’s company got over $175 million from U.S. investors by not being honest about the bribes. Also, Azure’s shares were being traded on the New York Stock Exchange during this time.
“Gautam and Sagar Adani orchestrated a bribery scheme that involved paying or promising to pay the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Indian government officials to secure their commitment to purchase energy at above-market rates that would benefit Adani Green and Azure Power,” the SEC said.
“Cabanes allegedly facilitated the authorization of bribes in furtherance of the scheme while in the United States and abroad,” the agency said.
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Gautam Adani is the second-richest person in Asia, with a reported net worth of $85 billion.
He lost tens of billions of dollars in personal wealth in early 2023 when the short-selling firm Hindenburg Research published a report accusing the Adani Group of engaging “in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades.”
Hindenburg’s report called it “the largest con in corporate history.”
Adani issued a 413-page response to Hindenburg, calling the allegations baseless.
