DOJ Permanently Drops Biden-Era Charges Against India’s Gautam Adani

Adani has not been charged or convicted in India over the bribery allegations.

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani speaks during an inauguration ceremony after the Adani Group completed the purchase of Haifa Port earlier in January 2023, in Haifa port, Israel, on Jan. 31, 2023. Amir Cohen/Reuters

The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion on May 18 requesting that its criminal indictment against executives of Indian renewable-energy company Adani Green Energy Limited be permanently dropped.

In November 2024, under President Joe Biden, the DOJ filed criminal charges against Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group; his nephew Sagar Adani; and several other executives.

The indictment alleged that the defendants conspired to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure contracts for Adani Green Energy to develop India’s largest solar power plant. These actions were said to violate the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

The charges also accused Gautam Adani and others of making false or misleading statements regarding the company’s anti-corruption compliance in connection with Adani Green Energy’s $750 million bond offering in 2021. Some of these bonds were purchased by U.S. investors. Overall, the indictment alleged that the defendants raised more than $3 billion from lenders and investors while concealing the alleged bribery scheme.

The Adani Group and its founder and chairman, Gautam Adani, have consistently denied wrongdoing, calling the allegations baseless.

Adani Green Energy Limited has not been reported in public filings to have been charged or convicted in India in connection with the alleged bribery scheme described in the Biden DOJ’s indictment.

The Bombay High Court rejected the bribery case as an “abuse of the process of the court,” citing a lack of independent evidence in India, reliance on foreign media reports and U.S. proceedings, and the petitioner’s lack of bona fides or bad faith.

“A petition like the present one causes serious harm to the reputation and business prospects of any Corporate entity,” the court said. “We do not find any merit in this writ petition, which is, accordingly, dismissed.”

Federal Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York approved dismissal of the Biden-era indictment with prejudice, meaning that the charges cannot be pursued against the Adani Group subsidiary in the future.

The DOJ said in its filing to dismiss that it had reviewed the case and decided “not to devote further resources to the criminal charges against the individual defendants.”

“The government may elect to eschew or discontinue prosecutions for any of a number of reasons,” it added. “Rarely will the judiciary overrule the Executive Branch’s exercise of these prosecutorial decisions.”

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) separately moved to settle ‌a smaller $18 million civil lawsuit against Adani executives over the alleged Indian bribery scheme, ⁠court records showed last week, although the move is subject to court approval.

The settlement did not require Adani to admit or deny the allegations.

Police personnel detain a member of the Communist Party of India (CPI-M) during a protest against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and billionaire businessman Gautam Adani, calling for the tycoon's arrest over corruption allegations by U.S. prosecutors, in Chennai, India, on Nov. 23, 2024. R.Satish Babu/AFP via Getty Images

$275 Million Settlement Over Violation of Iran Sanctions

The U.S. Treasury Department also announced on May 18 a $275 million settlement with another Adani company over its alleged violations of U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil.

The May 14 agreement, according to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)—the Treasury Department’s enforcement agency for economic and trade sanctions—will settle the potential civil liability of Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL), the flagship and core company of the Adani Group, over 32 “apparent violations of OFAC sanctions on Iran.”

According to the OFAC, the multinational company allegedly purchased shipments of Iranian liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from a Dubai-based supplier between November 2023 and June 2025. The supplier claimed to be supplying discounted gas to India from Oman and Iraq.

For the shipments, Adani made $192.1 million in payments through U.S. financial institutions, representing an “egregious” violation of U.S. sanctions, OFAC said in a press release.

The payments to the supplier were not voluntarily self-disclosed to U.S. authorities, it said, as “it does not appear that AEL was aware of the designation at the time,” although it ignored “a number of red flags.”

“For its part, AEL does not appear to have taken sufficient steps to investigate these red flags beyond reviewing shipping documentation and obtaining assurance from the Dubai Supplier that it was not selling Iranian-origin LPG after receipt of some of the third-party allegations,” the agency said.

“AEL appears to have believed that the allegations originated from competitors seeking to prevent it from entering the LPG market and that if the shipping documents were valid on their face, no additional inquiry was required.”

The agency said the settlement figure reflects Adani’s “remedial measures following discovery of the conduct,” the company’s otherwise lack of violations of U.S. sanctions, its cooperation with the investigation, and that the company’s LPG business represented only a small percentage of its overall revenue. The statutory maximum penalty Adani was facing was $384.2 million.

According to the OFAC, an affiliate of the Dubai supplier was added to its sanctions list in March 2023, as per President Donald Trump’s 2018 executive order 13846, which sanctions purchases of Iranian LPG.

“Energy importers must be familiar with and monitor for typologies associated with Iran’s reliance on a shadow fleet of vessels to transport its energy exports,” the agency said of the settlement. “Indeed, a majority of the vessels involved in the Apparent Violations were later designated by OFAC.”

Adani Group Stocks Rise

Shares of Adani Group companies jumped by as much as 5.3 percent on May 19.

The logo of the Adani Group on the facade of its buildings on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India, on April 13, 2021. Amit Dave/Reuters

“The removal of the legal overhang is a positive and could ​support debt refinancing ​and fundraising for new ⁠projects,” DRChoksey FinServ Managing Director Deven Choksey said, adding that the development could also pave the way for restructuring initiatives ​across the conglomerate.

Shares of Adani Enterprises rose by as ⁠much as 2.71 percent and were last up 1.75 percent at 2736.70 rupees by 1:45 ​p.m. IST.

Shares of Adani Green Energy were last up 1.77 percent, after rising by as much as 5.26 percent during the day. Adani Ports inched down 0.12 percent, while Adani Energy Solutions gained 0.67 percent.

Reuters contributed to this report.