Big update in Adani bribery case, civil and criminal cases against Indian billionaire assigned to…

A New York court has ordered that the criminal and civil cases filed against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and others in a bribery scheme are “related” and will be assigned to the judge overseeing the criminal case. The order available on the court website of the US District Court Eastern District of New York says that “in consultation with District Judge Garaufis, because USA v. Adani et al., 24 Crim. 433 (NGG), Securities and Exchange Commission v. Adani et al., 24 Civ. 8080 (VMS), and Securities and Exchange Commission v. Cabanes, 24 Civ. 8081 (VMS) are based on similar allegations and arise from the same transactions or events”.

“To promote judicial efficiency and avoid conflicting schedules, all three cases are marked as related. All three actions shall be assigned to the judges assigned to the earliest filed action, which is the criminal action, USA v. Adani et al., 24 Crim. 433 (NGG)… Ordered by Magistrate Judge Vera M. Scanlon on 12/12/2024. The case has now been reassigned to United States District Judge Nicholas Garaufis.”

Adani is being indicted by the US Department of Justice for his role in an alleged years-long scheme to pay USD 250 million bribes to Indian officials in exchange for favourable solar power contracts. The Adani group has denied the Department of Justice and the SEC’s allegations as ” baseless.”

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In November last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Gautam Adani Sagar Adani and Cyril Cabanes, an executive of Azure Power Global Ltd., for conduct arising out of a massive bribery scheme. In a parallel action, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York unsealed criminal charges against Gautam Sagar Adani and Cabanes, among other individuals connected to Adani Green and Azure Power.

The criminal indictment charges Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and Vneet S. Jaain with “conspiracies to commit securities and wire fraud and substantive securities fraud for their roles in a multi-billion-dollar scheme to obtain funds from US investors and global financial institutions based on false and misleading statements”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from PTI)