The United States Department of Justice is planning to drop fraud charges against Adani Group chairperson Gautam Adani, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

The US authorities had in November 2024 indicted Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani for allegedly orchestrating a $265 million fraud scheme to bribe officials in India for solar energy contracts, and then misrepresenting the company’s anti-bribery practices to investors in the US.

The details of the alleged bribes were concealed to secure financing, the US justice department had claimed.

The Adani Group has denied the allegations. In a stock exchange filing in November 2024, the conglomerate said that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani had been charged in the US for securities fraud, not bribery.

The decision to drop the charges came after Gautam Adani hired a legal team led by Robert J Giuffra Jr, one of US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers, The New York Times reported.

The newspaper reported that Giuffra met officials at the justice department’s headquarters in Washington in April. He presented about 100 slides arguing that the prosecutors lacked evidence and jurisdiction in the matter, The New York Times quoted unidentified persons familiar with the meeting as saying.

One slide also allegedly made an offer that Gautam Adani would invest $10 billion in the US economy and help create 15,000 jobs if the charges against him were dropped, according to the newspaper.

On November 13, 2024, eight days after Trump won the presidential election, Gautam Adani congratulated the Republican leader on social media and said his conglomerate was committed to investing $10 billion in the US and creating up to 15,000 jobs.

Even if the criminal charges are dropped, Gautam Adani is still expected to pay financial penalties, The New York Times quoted persons aware of the case as saying.

During the same meeting, the lawyer also sought to resolve a parallel civil case filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against Gautam Adani, The New York Times reported. On Thursday, the US markets regulator reached a settlement with Gautam Adani in the matter, the Financial Times reported.

As part of this settlement, Gautam Adani agreed to pay $6 million, while his nephew Sagar Adani agreed to pay $12 million, Bloomberg reported. Sagar Adani will pay $12 million.

Adani Green Energy, a subsidiary of the Adani Group, told stock exchanges on Friday that the “company is not a party to this proceeding, and no charges have been brought against it”.

However, it confirmed that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani had agreed to the “payment of a civil penalty”, while stating that the decision was made “without admitting or denying the allegations made in the civil complaint”.

The final judgement of the US Eastern District Court of New York is awaited, the company said.

The US Department of Treasury, which is separately investigating the conglomerate for shipping Iranian gas in violation of United States sanctions, is also preparing to impose its own penalty, The New York Times reported. This penalty could be about $275 million, the newspaper quoted persons with knowledge of the matter as having said.

In April, Gautam Adani reportedly moved a US court seeking that the fraud case filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission be dismissed on the grounds that it constituted an impermissible extraterritorial application of American law.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

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