NEW YORK: In June 2020, a renewable energy company owned by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani won what it called the largest solar development bid ever: a deal to provide 8 gigawatts of electricity to a power company. public electricity.
But there was a problem. Local power companies did not want to pay the prices offered by the state company, which jeopardized the agreement, according to American authorities. To save the deal, Adani reportedly decided to bribe local authorities to persuade them to buy the electricity.
The allegation is at the heart of U.S. criminal and civil charges unsealed Wednesday against Adani, who is not currently in U.S. custody and is believed to be in India. His company, Adani Group, said the accusations were “baseless” and that it would seek “all possible legal remedies”.
The alleged hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes promised to local Indian officials attracted the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, as Adani’s companies raised funds from US-based investors in several transactions starting in 2021.
This account of how the alleged scheme unfolded is drawn from federal prosecutors’ 54-page criminal indictment against Adani and seven of his associates and two parallel civil complaints with the SEC, which extensively cite e-mail messages between the participants suspected of the scheme.
In early 2020, the Solar Energy Corporation of India awarded Adani Green Energy and another company, Azure Power Global, contracts for a 12-gigawatt solar power project, which is expected to generate billions of dollars in revenue for both companies, according to the indictment.
This is a major breakthrough for Adani Green Energy, led by Adani’s nephew Sagar Adani. Until then, the company had only earned about $50 million in its history and had yet to turn a profit, according to the SEC complaint.
But the initiative quickly ran into obstacles. Local electricity distributors were reluctant to commit to purchasing new solar power, expecting prices to fall in the future, according to an April 7, 2021 report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a think tank.
Sagar Adani and Azure’s then-CEO discussed delays and alluded to bribes on encrypted messaging app WhatsApp, according to the SEC.
When Azure CEO wrote on November 24, 2020 that local power companies “are motivated,” Sagar Adani reportedly replied: “Yes… but the optical aspects are very difficult to cover. In February 2021, Sagar Adani reportedly wrote to the CEO, “Just so you know, we have doubled the incentives to push for these acceptances.”
The SEC did not name Azure’s CEO as a defendant, but Azure filings show that the CEO at the time was Ranjit Gupta.
Gupta was charged by the Justice Department with conspiracy to violate an anti-corruption law. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Azure said Thursday that it was cooperating with U.S. investigations and that those involved in the accusations left the company more than a year ago.