US SEC and Adani Group
Why is the US SEC involved in this so-called Adani Bribery Scam?
It is the biggest news of this week and is alreadycausing shockwaves across India.
The source documents of the indictment detail two primary criminal schemes: a bribery scheme involving Indian government officials and a wire fraud scheme targeting investors in the United States and elsewhere.
The Bribery Scheme
Senior executives of Adani’s renewable energy company, a subsidiary of a larger Adani conglomerate, are accused of bribing Indian government officials to secure lucrative solar energy contracts.
The scheme allegedly involved promising and paying bribes to influence the decisions of state electricity distribution companies in India to enter into power purchase agreements (PSAs) with the Indian energy company’s subsidiaries. The bribes were intended to ensure the purchase of solar power from the subsidiaries under the “Manufacturing Linked Project.”
The scheme also involved extensive efforts to conceal the bribes, including the use of code names and the destruction of evidence. Key individuals involved in the scheme included Gautam S. Adani, Sagar R. Adani, Vineet S. Jain, and Ranjit Gupta.
The Wire Fraud Scheme
Simultaneously with the bribery scheme, the allegation is that these people engaged in a fraudulent scheme to obtain financing for the Indian energy company and its subsidiaries, involving securing loans and issuing bonds to investors in the United States and elsewhere based on false and misleading statements.
One of the main allegations is that the misrepresentations by these people induced investors to purchase bonds and financial institutions to lend money, impacting the prices and terms of these transactions. So, the claim is that they have used the United States financial system to perpetuate the fraudulent scheme by seeking and securing investors physically located in the United States and causing wires to be sent and received that passed through the United States.
