Adani group indicted: Chhattisgarh contracts in bribery case

Raipur | Correspondent: In the indictment filed against Adani in the Brooklyn Federal Court of New York in the US, Chhattisgarh is also mentioned on several pages.

Referring to Chhattisgarh State Power Distribution Limited, it has been explained in detail how the Adani Group entered into contracts with different states.

It is worth noting that Gautam Adani has been accused of giving a bribe of $250 million to get a contract for his company in the US and hiding this matter.

The company was expecting a profit of more than two billion dollars from this contract in the coming 20 years.

Apart from Gautam Adani, Sagar R Adani, Vineet S Jain, Ranjit Gupta, Rupesh Agarwal, Deepak Malhotra, Saurabh Agarwal and Cyril Cabanis are also named among the accused.

As alleged in the indictment, between 2020 and 2024, the defendants agreed to pay over $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials in order to obtain lucrative solar power supply contracts with the Indian government, which were estimated to generate over $2 billion in after-tax profits over a period of approximately 20 years (the Bribery Scheme).

According to the FBI, on multiple occasions, Gautam S. Adani met in person with an Indian government official to further the bribery scheme, and the defendants held personal meetings with each other to discuss aspects of its execution.

The defendants frequently discussed their efforts to further the bribery scheme, including via an electronic messaging application.

The defendants are also alleged to have extensively documented their corrupt efforts for example, Sagar R. Adani used his cellular phone to track the specific details of the bribes paid to government officials and Rupesh Agrawal prepared and distributed to the other defendants several analyses using PowerPoint and Excel summarizing the various options for paying bribes and concealing them.

During the same period, Gautam S. Adani, Sagar R. Adani and Vineet S. Jain allegedly conspired to misrepresent the Indian energy company’s anti-bribery and corruption practices and conceal the bribery scheme from US investors and international financial institutions in order to obtain financing, including to finance solar power supply contracts obtained through the bribes.

The indictment further alleges that Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agrawal, Deepak Malhotra and Rupesh Agrawal conspired to obstruct the grand jury, FBI and US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigations into the bribery scheme.

Among other things, the four defendants agreed to delete electronic materials related to the bribery scheme, and falsely denied their involvement in the bribery scheme before representatives of the FBI, DOJ and SEC at meetings in Brooklyn, New York.

For this conduct, Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agrawal, Deepak Malhotra and Rupesh Agrawal have been charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The 54-page indictment filed against the Adani Group can be read here.