Gautam Adani, chairman of Indian conglomerate Adani Group, speaks at a meeting during the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2024 in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India, January 10, 2024.
Punit Paranjpe | AFP Getty Images
Gautam Adani, chairman of India’s Adani Group and one of the world’s richest men, was indicted along with others on unsealed bribery and fraud charges Wednesday in federal court in New York.
Andani and other defendants are accused of bribing Indian government officials with more than $250 million in bribes to win solar energy supply contracts worth more than $2 billion.
The 62-year-old and two executives at Adani Green Energy Limited – his nephew Sagar Adani and Vneet Jaain – are also accused of misleading US and international investors about the company’s compliance with anti-bribery and anti-corruption practices as they raised more than $3 billion in capital to finance energy contracts.
The five-count indictment in US District Court in Brooklyn also charges Ranjit Gupta and Rupash Agarwal, former executives at renewable energy company Azure Power Global, and three former employees of the Canadian investment institution Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec: Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal and Deepak Malhotra. .
A worker walks past rows of solar panels at Adani Group’s Khavda Renewable Energy Park in Khavda, India, January 12, 2024.
Punit Paranjpe | Afp | Getty Images
The defendants were charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with a bribery scheme by Adani and others at the energy company.
Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal, Malhotra and Rupash Agarwal were also charged with conspiring to obstruct a federal and Securities and Exchange Commission criminal investigation into the bribery scheme.
Gautam Adani is the second richest man in Asia, with a net worth of $85 billion.
He lost tens of billions of dollars in personal wealth in early 2023 when short-selling firm Hindenburg Research published a report accusing the Adani Group of engaging in “decade-long stock manipulation and accounting fraud schemes.”
Hindenburg’s report called it “the biggest con in the company’s history.”
Adani published a 413-page response to Hindenburg, calling the allegations baseless.
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