Criminal charges against businessman Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani, registered in the United States of America, were dismissed on Monday, August 11.
The charges pertain to a conspiracy by two Adani Group companies – Adani Green Energy Limited and Azure Power Global Limited – to pay 265 million USD in bribes to Indian government officials to secure solar energy contracts. The charges against five other executives stand.
However, the US Department of Justice’s decision to drop the charges against Gautam and Sagar Adani contained “concerning irregularities”, the Judge Nicholas Garaufis said, according to a report in the Financial Times.
The report also said that the judge noted that principal associate deputy attorney-general Trent McCotter seemed to have taken the decision to drop the charges “largely in collaboration” with Adani’s own lawyers. The judge also called not gathering the inputs of trial prosecutors working on the case as “highly unusual”.
The judge made note of repeated efforts made by the Adanis’ lawyer to settle the bribery case with “monetary offers”. These offers were, however, not the reason the Department of Justice dropped the charges, the judge added.
In 2024, Adani had promised an investment of 10 billion USD in the US and the creation of 15,000 jobs. This offer was reiterated later, on the condition that the Department of Justice drop the criminal charges against him.
In May 2026, Gautam and Sagar Adani settled a civil lawsuit against them by paying six million USD and 12 million USD respectively. This civil case by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was on charges of lying to American investors about the solar contracts bribery. This was separate from the 10 billion USD investment promised.