Highlights:
- US Justice Department wants all charges against Gautam Adani dismissed.
- Prosecutors said the case is primarily foreign and difficult to prove.
- The department argued the case does not involve US national security or companies.
- Officials denied reports that the decision was linked to Adani's US investment plans.
- The final decision now rests with US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis.
THE Justice Department said last Saturday (4) it wants to drop charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani because the case is primarily foreign, hard to prove and inconsistent with the agency’s current priorities.
District Judge Nicholas Garaufis last month ordered prosecutors to justify their decision to drop their case against Adani, whom Biden-era prosecutors charged with securities fraud and wire fraud related to an alleged bribery scheme. The Justice Department last Saturday responded with a 10-page filing outlining why it sought to dismiss all charges with prejudice against Adani and other defendants.
Prosecutors under the administration of president Joe Biden started a baseless case against Adani with little chance of success, the new filing said.
“The indictment was unsealed in the final days of the prior administration, apparently as a ‘name and shame’ designed to levy accusations without any realistic prospect of a trial ever occurring,” the court filing said.
US government attorneys should not prosecute a “foreign case” of alleged conduct that involves no criminal organizations and no US companies, and does not affect national security, the Justice Department said.
“The alleged ‘payments’ in this case were made by Indian nationals, working for Indian companies, to the Indian government, with no US interests implicated in any way,” the filing said.
Adani was charged in 2024 with agreeing to bribe Indian government officials so a subsidiary of his Adani Group could win approval to develop a solar energy plant, then misleading US investors by providing reassuring information about his company’s anti-corruption practices.
Adani Group, Adani’s company, has consistently denied wrongdoing.
Adani himself has not appeared in US court to respond to the charges.
In a filing, responding to the judge’s demand for a fuller explanation, principal associate deputy attorney general, R Trent McCotter, rejected media reports suggesting the dismissal was influenced by the Adani-led conglomerate’s investment plans.
“The current or former Department attorneys... have suggested that I sought dismissal of the securities charges at least in part because of some promise by those defendants to invest money in the United States. That is false,” McCotter wrote.
“I would have sought dismissal of the securities charges regardless of any mentions of investments,” he added, saying he had already concluded that the case should be dropped before the issue was ever raised.
“The mention of potential investments could not have played any role.”
The department further said the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges no longer fit the Trump administration’s enforcement policy, which prioritises cases affecting US national security, American companies or transnational criminal organisations.
“The FCPA charges should have been dismissed a year ago,” McCotter wrote.
The decision to drop US charges marked the latest instance in which the Justice Department has sought to end a high-profile white-collar criminal prosecution during president Donald Trump’s second term.
Legal experts say US judges have little discretion to compel prosecutors to continue with criminal cases they no longer wish to pursue, but the charges remain officially pending until Garaufis orders them dismissed.
