The financial regulator of Mauritius had, in May 2022, revoked licences of the controlling shareholder of two overseas investors in the Adani Group, The Indian Express reported on Saturday.

Business and investment licences of the Emerging India Fund Management Limited were cancelled for allegedly not complying with regulations related to money laundering, accounting and auditing standards, corporate governance and maintaining records of clients and transactions, the newspaper reported.

“When a licence is revoked, it is on a permanent basis,” a spokesperson of the Mauritian regulator Financial Services Commission, told The Indian Express. “Licensees are directed to initiate the necessary actions for the orderly dissolution of their business and the discharge of their liabilities.”

The development holds significance as records of India’s markets regulator, the Securities and Exchanges Board of India, show that the Emerging India Fund Management Limited is the controlling shareholder of Emerging India Focus Funds and EM Resurgent Fund – two of Adani’s overseas investors facing investigation.

The Securities and Exchanges Board of India is investigating 13 overseas entities that hold Adani shares. In May, an expert panel constituted by the Supreme Court to oversee the investigations had noted that the markets regulator has “drawn a blank” in its inquiry, and that the probe could be a “journey without a destination”.

Also read: SEBI knew about allegations against Adani Group since 2014, letter shows

When asked about the revocation of licences of Emerging India Fund Management, the Adani Group told The Indian Express that that the conglomerate will not be able to comment on matters related to its “independent individual shareholders”.

Notably, the alleged irregularities in Emerging India Fund Management were not part of the report published by American firm Hindenburg Research in January. The report had alleged that the Adani Group was pulling off the “largest con in corporate history”. Hindenburg claimed that the conglomerate has been involved in accounting fraud, improper use of tax havens, and money laundering.

The Adani Group had rejected these allegations but the report still pummeled the stocks of the conglomerate’s listed companies.

In another report published last month, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project had claimed that two investors who pumped in hundreds of millions of dollars into the Adani Group through offshore funds have close ties to its promoters.

In an apparent violation of stock market rules, Chang Chung-Ling from Taiwan and Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli from the United Arab Emirates invested money in Adani stocks through “opaque” investment funds based in Mauritius, the global network of investigative journalists alleged.