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Indictment against Gautam Adani et al. | |
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Court | United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York |
Full case name | United States of America v. Gautam Adani et al. |
Docket nos. | 24-cr-433 |
Charge | 5 counts against all defendants |
Court membership | |
Judge sitting |
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Indictment against Gautam Adani et al. is a 2024 federal indictment in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. [1] Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and seven top business executives of Adani Group and its affiliates have been charged for their alleged involvement in a scheme to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Indian government officials and to hide the bribery from U.S. investors. [2]
On November 20, 2024, a five-count indictment unsealed in Brooklyn charges Indian Energy Company executives Gautam Adani [3] , Sagar Adani [4] , and Vneet Jaain [5] with securities and wire fraud for a multi-billion-dollar scheme involving false statements to U.S. investors and global financial institution.
In March 2024, the United States expanded its probe into Adani Group, particularly focusing on founder Gautam Adani's conduct and potential bribery by his group companies in exchange for favorable treatment regarding an energy project. [6] [7] The investigation is being handled by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and the United States Department of Justice Criminal Division's fraud unit in Washington. [8]
An unsealed five-count indictment in Brooklyn federal court charges Gautam Adani, his associates, and executives from other firms with a bribery and fraud scheme involving more than $250 million in payments to Indian government officials. [9] [10] The alleged bribes secured lucrative solar energy contracts for Adani Green Energy [11] , projected to yield over $2 billion in profits, while misleading U.S. and international investors through false statements to raise funds. [12] The indictment also accuses other individuals, including former employees of a Canadian institutional investor [13] , of obstructing investigations by deleting evidence and providing false information to authorities. [1]
The defendants allegedly concealed the bribery scheme by making false and misleading statements [14] while raising over $3 billion through loans and bond offerings marketed to U.S. investors. The case, investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Department of Justice's Fraud Section, highlights efforts to combat corruption and fraud impacting U.S. financial markets. Charges include securities fraud, wire fraud, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and obstruction of justice. [2]
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) is a United States federal law that prohibits U.S. citizens and entities from bribing foreign government officials to benefit their business interests.
Adani Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate, headquartered in Ahmedabad. Founded by Gautam Adani in 1988 as a commodity trading business, the Group's businesses include sea and airport management, electricity generation and transmission, mining, natural gas, food, weapons, and infrastructure. It is particularly active in metal commodity exchange. More than 60% of its revenue is derived from coal-related businesses.
Gautam Shantilal Adani is an Indian billionaire businessman who is the founder and chairman of the Adani Group, a multinational conglomerate involved in port development and operations in India. As of 21 November 2024, Adani is ranked second richest person in Asia and 25th in the world, with a net worth of $60 billion. In 2022, Time magazine included him in the 100 most influential people in the world.
The Oil-for-Food Program Hearings were held by the U.S Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations beginning in 2004 to investigate abuses of the United Nations (UN) Oil-for-Food Programme in which the economically sanctioned country of Iraq was intended to be able to sell limited amounts of oil in exchange for vital food and medicine for its population.
The Cockerham bribery case involved the investigation and subsequent trials of United States Army contracting officers and their family members who were accused of accepting bribes in return for steering multimillion-dollar contracts to companies providing services for the US Army in Iraq and Kuwait between 2004 and 2007. The alleged ringleader of the accused officers was US Army Major John L. Cockerham, who was sentenced to 17 and 1/2 years in prison for accepting bribes from Army contractors. The contracts, mainly for bottled water, involved at least three US Army contracting officers, two of their family members, six companies from India, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United States, and up to $15 million in bribe money.
Beny Steinmetz is an Israeli businessman and entrepreneur, with a focus on the mining, energy, real estate and diamond-mining industries. He has been convicted of corrupt and illegal business practices in multiple countries. Beny Steinmetz is the chairman and co-founder of the philanthropic trust, Agnes & Beny Steinmetz Foundation and is actively involved in the art world in Israel.
In 2015, United States federal prosecutors disclosed cases of corruption by officials and associates connected with the Fédération internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the governing body of association football, futsal and beach soccer.
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Unaoil is a Monaco based company which provides "industrial solutions to the energy sector in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa." Unaoil is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven with an opaque banking system.
Solar Energy Corporation of India Ltd. (SECI) is a public sector company of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India, established to facilitate the implementation of the National Solar Mission (NSM). The company's mandate has been broadened to cover the entire renewable energy domain and the company will be renamed to Renewable Energy Corporation of India (RECI). The company attained Navratna status in 2024, which allows the organisation to undertake substantial investments of up to ₹1,000 crore without needing approval from the Centre.
Mark (Meir) Nordlicht is the founder and former chief investment officer of Platinum Partners, a U.S. based hedge fund, which came to be known for its investment strategies becoming the subject of a series of controversial and legal actions. In a high-profile case, government prosecutors leaked that Nordlicht ran a “Ponzi scheme”, only to be convicted of a lesser charge and sentenced to home confinement.
Greg Evan Lindberg is a convicted American insurance fraudster and former business executive and founder of Global Growth, a conglomerate private-equity firm. He also donated large sums of money to political causes. In 2020 he was convicted of bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and sentenced to seven years and three months in federal prison. The conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court in June 2022 pending a retrial. He was convicted of the same charges at a new trial on May 15, 2024.
Operation Varsity Blues was the code name for the investigation into the 2019 criminal conspiracy scandal to influence undergraduate admissions decisions at several top American universities.
Hindenburg Research LLC is a U.S. investment research firm with a focus on activist short-selling founded by Nathan Anderson in 2017. Named after the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, which they characterize as a human-made avoidable disaster, the firm generates public reports via its website that allege corporate fraud and malfeasance. Companies that have been the subjects of their reports include Super Micro Computer, Adani Group, Nikola, Clover Health, Block, Inc., Kandi, Lordstown Motors, and Roblox Corporation. These reports also feature defenses of the practice of short-selling and explanations of how short-sells can "play a critical role in exposing fraud and protecting investors."
Madhabi Puri Buch is an Indian businesswoman who is the chairperson of the securities regulatory body in India, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). She is the first woman to lead SEBI, and the first person from the private sector to be appointed to this position.
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Ciminelli v. United States, 598 U.S. 306 (2023), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that rejected the "right-to-control" theory as a valid basis for convictions under the federal wire fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1343. In the six months after the Ciminelli decision, two out of twelve appeals up to that point making arguments based on it succeeded.