New York/New Delhi: Billionaire Gautam Adani is on the verge of putting to rest a clutch of US legal proceedings that have shadowed his conglomerate since late 2024, with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) having reached a civil settlement and the Justice Department poised to withdraw criminal charges within days, PTI reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
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The SEC on Thursday settled civil allegations against Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani, related to disclosures made to investors in connection with solar energy projects in India. Court records show Gautam Adani has agreed to pay USD 6 million and Sagar Adani USD 12 million, with neither admitting nor denying wrongdoing.
Following the SEC settlement, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) is preparing to drop criminal charges against both men, after months of back-and-forth between federal prosecutors and an expanded legal team headed by Robert J Giuffra Jr, a senior partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and one of US President Donald Trump's personal lawyers.
The charges, brought in November 2024 alongside the SEC's civil complaint, alleged that the Adanis had orchestrated a scheme to pay USD 265 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure solar energy contracts, concealing the arrangement from US investors and banks when raising funds. Prosecutors charged Gautam Adani under securities fraud and wire fraud statutes, though he was not named in the more serious Foreign Corrupt Practices Act bribery counts brought against other defendants.
The dismissal is expected to be "with prejudice," preventing the case from being reopened, PTI reported.
The resolution follows months of engagement between US authorities and lawyers drawn from Sullivan & Cromwell, Nixon Peabody, Hecker Fink, Norton Rose Fulbright and Bracewell. The legal team argued that prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence and jurisdiction to pursue the case.
The proceedings had attracted scrutiny from legal experts who questioned whether US prosecutors had stretched securities laws to pursue conduct that was largely centred in India. Former SEC commissioner Laura Unger was among those who raised concerns, arguing prosecutors had attempted to "shoehorn bribery allegations into a securities fraud case" without a sufficient jurisdictional basis under the FCPA.
The Adanis' lawyers maintained there was no credible evidence supporting the alleged bribery scheme, that the SEC lacked the necessary jurisdiction over the two men, and that the alleged misstatements underpinning the case were not actionable.
Separately, a Treasury Department investigation into potential Iran sanctions violations is also approaching resolution. The matter concerns the import of Iranian LPG by a vessel linked to the group and is expected to be resolved through a settlement following voluntary disclosures and cooperation with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Any settlement is expected to carry financial penalties without admissions of wrongdoing.
The Adani Group has consistently denied wrongdoing and maintained it upholds strong governance and compliance standards. While Gautam Adani chairs the conglomerate, Sagar Adani serves as executive director at Adani Green Energy.
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If the resolutions are finalised, they would lift a significant legal overhang from a group that has continued to grow across infrastructure, ports, transport and energy throughout the period of investigation. Company filings show Adani Group's listed entities posted record EBITDA of USD 5.3 billion in the first half of fiscal year 2026 and are expected to deploy nearly USD 17 billion in capital expenditure during the period. The group, which spans green energy, ports, realty, mining and news media, has continued to attract global investors, including BlackRock, since the charges were filed.