Indian conglomerate chair Gautam Adani indicted in the US
Gautam Adani, the chair of Indian conglomerate Adani Group and one of the world’s richest people, has been indicted in New York over an alleged multibillion-dollar fraud scheme, United States prosecutors have said.
The authorities on Wednesday charged Adani and two other executives at Adani Green Energy, his nephew Sagar Adani and Vneet Jaain, with agreeing between 2020 and 2024 to pay more than $250m in bribes to Indian government officials to obtain solar energy supply contracts expected to yield $2bn in profits.
Prosecutors said the renewable energy company also raised more than $3bn in loans and bonds during this period based on false and misleading statements.
Five other people were hit with related criminal conspiracy charges, including two executives of another renewable energy company, and three employees of a Canadian institutional investor.
The Adani Group did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and neither did India’s embassy in Washington, DC.In the wake of the US indictments, shares of Adani Group companies lost about $28bn in market value in morning trading on Thursday.
Adani Enterprises tumbled 23 percent, while Adani Ports, Adani Total Gas, Adani Green, Adani Power, Adani Wilmar and Adani Energy Solutions, ACC, Ambuja Cements and NDTV fell between 9 percent and 20 percent.
At 05:34 GMT, the group’s 10 listed stocks had a total market capitalisation of about $141bn, compared with $169.08bn on Tuesday.
But in a statement on Thursday, Adani Green said it had decided not to proceed with the proposed US dollar-denominated bond offerings due to the developments.
According to court records, a judge has issued arrest warrants for Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani, and prosecutors plan to hand those warrants to foreign law enforcement.
The case involves alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a US anti-bribery law.
Seven of the eight defendants are Indian citizens and lived in India, while the eighth, Cyril Cabanes, is a dual French-Australian citizen who lived in Singapore, prosecutors said.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission filed related civil charges against Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and Cabanes, 50, an executive at Azure Power Global. Prosecutors identified Cabanes as one of the Canadian investor’s employees.
Gautam Adani is worth $69.8bn, according to Forbes magazine, making him the world’s 22nd richest and India’s second-richest person.
