Gautam Adani, the billionaire chair of Indian conglomerate Adani Group, has been indicted by a US Federal Court over allegedly paying US$250 million in bribes to Indian officials to secure solar energy contracts.
Seven other executives, including Adani’s nephew, Sagar Adani, were indicted over alleged bribery, securities and wire fraud and substantive securities fraud in Brooklyn, New York, yesterday (20 November).
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Cyril Cabanes, a former board member of Indian independent power producer (IPP) Azure Power, was also accused of “facilitating” the bribery scheme in the US, while Azure Power stock was traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) indictment alleges that the defendants paid over US$250 million to Indian government officials to obtain government solar energy supply contracts between 2020 and 2024, as part of what it called a “massive bribery scheme”. The SEC said these contracts were projected to generate over US$2 billion in profits over a 20-year period.
It also alleges that Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and Adani Power CEO Vneet S. Jaain concealed the scheme from US and international financial institutions in efforts to secure loans from US investors.
Adani Group has denied the allegations and called them “baseless”. The company’s stock price has tumbled by as much as 20% since the announcement.
In a press release, the SEC said: “As alleged, Gautam and Sagar Adani were engaged in the bribery scheme during a September 2021 note offering by Adani Green that raised US$750 million, including approximately US$175 million from US investors.”
Sanjay Wadhwa, acting director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement added: “Gautam and Sagar Adani induced US investors to buy Adani Green bonds through an offering process that misrepresented not only that Adani Green had a robust anti-bribery compliance program but also that the company’s senior management had not and would not pay or promise to pay bribes, and Cyril Cabanes participated in the underlying bribery scheme while serving as director of a US public company.”
In September 2021, PV Tech reported that Adani had closed US$750 million in financing through a green bond offer that was over four times oversubscribed. This financing enabled the company to pursue its then-goal of deploying 25GW of renewable energy capacity.
Unsealed criminal charges from the US Attorney’s Office for the East District of New York allege that Sagar Adani used his mobile phone to track specifics of the bribery scheme and Rupesh Agarwal distributed PowerPoint and Excel documents detailing options for paying and concealing bribe payments. Gautam Adani allegedly met with Indian officials to advance the scheme “on several occasions”.
This is the second scandal to embroil Gautam Adani and his conglomerate in the last two years, after the Adani Group was accused of fraud in 2023. At the time, managing director of energy consultancy Bridge to India, Vinay Rustagi, told PV Tech Premium that the 2023 embattlement would be unlikely to impact the wider Indian solar market.
It remains to be seen what impact these bribery charges will have on India’s solar sector. Adani Group operates both solar development and manufacturing subsidiaries, which play a significant role in the country’s solar industry.
The company is the main contractor for the Khavda solar park, one of the largest renewable energy sites in the world, and has signed billions of dollars of financing and construction deals for the site’s various phases. In September it inked a 5GW power purchase agreement (PPA) with the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company (MSEDCL) for power produced at Khavda.
Adani’s solar manufacturing subsidiary, Adani Solar, is also expanding its cell and module manufacturing capacity in India.
