New York, Updated Jan 4 (PTI) 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.
Mr. Adani is being indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for his role in an alleged years-long scheme to pay $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.” “The allegations made by the US Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission against directors of Adani Green are baseless and denied,” a spokesperson for the Adani Group had said in a statement.
The spokesperson pointed to a US Department of Justice statement that said: “The charges in the indictment are allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty”.
The group has said that “all possible legal recourse will be sought”.
“The Adani Group has always upheld and is steadfastly committed to maintaining the highest standards of governance, transparency and regulatory compliance across all jurisdictions of its operations. We assure our stakeholders, partners and employees that we are a law-abiding organisation, fully compliant with all laws,” the spokesperson added.
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 U.S. 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”.
The indictment also charges Ranjit Gupta and Rupesh Agarwal, former executives of a renewable-energy company with securities that had traded on the New York Stock Exchange and Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal and Deepak Malhotra, former employees of a Canadian institutional investor, with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with a bribery scheme also perpetrated by Gautam S. Adani, Sagar R. Adani and Vneet S. Jaain, involving one of the world’s largest solar energy projects, a statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York had said.
