NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has been indicted by U.S. prosecutors for his alleged role in a $265 million bribery scheme in India, plunging his conglomerate deep into crisis for the second time in two years.
Gautam, his nephew Sagar Adani, and Adani Green Energy Ltd former CEO Vneet Jaain were charged with violating securities and wire fraud laws, and the Adanis were also charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a civil case.
The SEC also charged Cyril Cabanes, an executive of Azure Power Global Ltd, for his alleged role in the scheme.
The Adani Group has rejected the allegations as baseless and said it complied fully with all laws. Azure Power did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Here are the key events revealed in the alleged bribery scheme, as reported by U.S. authorities:
Dec 2019-July 2020: India’s federal government-owned Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) contracted to buy 8 gigawatts (GW) of solar power from Adani Green Energy and 4 GW from Azure Power Global.
Under the agreement, SECI was to then find state electricity distribution companies that would buy the 12 GW of solar power.
2020: High, fixed energy prices made it tough for SECI to find buyers, which put the entire project in jeopardy.
To protect the project, Gautam Adani, along with Sagar and other officials, came up with a scheme to “offer, authorise, make and promise to make bribe payments to Indian government officials” to find buyers for SECI.
Aug to Nov 2021: Gautam met an unidentified Indian official in the southern industrial state of Andhra Pradesh multiple times. The official was offered 17.50 billion rupees ($207.14 million) and Andhra Pradesh state’s electricity distribution companies agreed to buy 7 GW of solar power.
Adani and others offered and promised 2.79 billion rupees to officials in other states as well to enter into agreements to buy solar power from SECI.
Gautam’s nephew tracked details of the bribes offered to various officials in different states on his mobile.
July 2021 to Feb 2022: Electricity firms in the states of Odisha, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh entered deals to buy power from SECI, which it would buy from Azure Power and Adani Green Energy.
April 2022 – Gautam was scheduled to meet Azure Power CEO Ranjit Gupta and others to discuss how Azure could repay Adani Green around $83 million for its share of the bribes.
Azure, however, asked Gupta and another executive to resign.
Gautam, Jaain and Sagar met Azure’s consultant Rupesh Agarwal and another executive, and the Adanis presented “multiple options” for Azure to Adani Green.
June 2022: Some Azure Power executives and the Adanis finalised the mechanism to facilitate the payment by returning power purchase agreements for 2.3 GW from SECI, which it would then award to Adani Green.
March 2023 – FBI agents approached Sagar in the U.S. with a search warrant and seized his electronic gadgets, and served him with a subpoena.
It detailed the offences, people and entities being investigated by the U.S. authorities. These details were shared with Gautam.
March 2024 – SECI allowed the reallocation of 2.3 GW of purchase deals from Azure Power to Adani Green’s unit.
Apart from the bribery scheme, U.S. authorities have also alleged Gautam, along with Sagar and other company executives, raised over $3.5 billion between 2021-24 from global financial institutions based on false and misleading statements about Adani Green’s anti-bribery practices.
($1 = 84.4825 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Tanvi Mehta; Editing by Mark Potter)
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