US prosecutors charged Gautam Adani with helping drive a $250 million bribery scheme, threatening to throw the Indian tycoon’s conglomerate back into turmoil just as it rebounded from a short-seller’s fraud allegations.
Federal prosecutors alleged on Wednesday that Adani, one of the world’s richest people, and other defendants promised to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to win solar energy contracts, and concealed the plan as they sought to raise money from US investors. The five-count indictment also accuses Gautam’s nephew Sagar R. Adani and Vneet S. Jaain, both executives at an Indian renewable-energy company, of breaking federal laws.
“The defendants orchestrated an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars,” Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York which brought the case, said in a statement. US law allows federal prosecutors to pursue foreign corruption allegations if they involve certain links to American investors or markets.
Bloomberg input
