According to Bloomberg, representatives of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani have been urging the Trump administration to dismiss the bribery accusations in the case involving solar transactions. According to a Bloomberg article, Gautam Adani has been attempting to persuade the Donald Trump administration to dismiss the criminal charges against him in the issue of solar contracts bribery.
In November 2024, the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) indicted Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani, and others on a number of charges, claiming that the defendants paid bribes totalling ₹2,029 crores to obtain solar power contracts with several Indian states through the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). Days after Trump’s election triumph was announced, the indictment was made public.
According to Bloomberg, since January, Adani and representatives of his businesses have been attempting to persuade Trump administration officials that Adani’s prosecution is not in line with his values. According to Bloomberg, which cited unnamed individuals, the discussions have been more heated in recent weeks.
Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy was among the officials Adani met and offered bribes to in exchange for purchasing solar power from Adani Green Energy through the public sector company SECI, according to a complaint submitted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
According to the SEC, Gautam Adani proposed a $200 million bribe when he met with Y.S. Jagan in 2021. Prior to the indictment in November 2024, Adani had congratulated Trump on X and said that the Adani Group would spend $10 billion in energy and other projects in the United States, resulting in the creation of 15,000 jobs once Trump won the election.
During his February visit to the United States, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi—who is known to have a close relationship with Adani—was questioned by a reporter about if he spoke with Trump about the matter. PM Modi declined, referring to it as a “personal matter.”
Bloomberg’s sources claim that Adani’s associates also contacted Indian government representatives to ask for guidance on how to handle the matter with Trump. According to the article, Adani has also enlisted the help of renowned American attorneys and lobbyists to further his case against the Trump administration. Prosecutors from the federal Justice Department and Brooklyn’s U.S. Attorney’s Office met once in March.
According to Bloomberg, Mark Filip of Kirkland & Ellis, a legal company, and members of BGR Group, a government relations business that also represents India in trade negotiations with the Trump administration, are among the individuals working in the United States on behalf of Adani.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) has been “abused in a manner that harms the interests of the United States,” according to Trump’s instructions to halt its implementation in February. He said that the country’s “economic competitiveness” and “national security” are harmed by “overexpansive and unpredictable FCPA enforcement against American citizens and businesses.”
As reported by Bloomberg, a bribery prosecution against two former Cognizant Technology Solutions executives was later abandoned. In 2019, they were accused of approving a $2 million bribe to an Indian official in order to assist in securing a permit for the construction of a Cognizant office complex in Chennai.
As it investigates the Adani issue, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has turned to Indian authorities for assistance.
