The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken a key procedural step to advance its civil fraud case against Adani group chairman Gautam Adani, after arranging for legal papers to be formally served on him, according
to a report from Reuters.
In a filing made on Friday in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, the SEC says it had reached an agreement with US-based lawyers representing Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani to accept service of the regulator’s complaint. The move removes the need for US district judge Nicholas Garaufis to decide on alternative methods of serving the defendants, who are based in India.
If the court approves the arrangement, both Mr Adani and his nephew Sagar will have 90 days to respond to the SEC’s complaint. Their response could include filing motions seeking dismissal of the case.
Lawyers representing the two men declined to comment, the report says, adding, "Robert Giuffra, counsel for Gautam Adani, and Sean Hecker, who represents Sagar Adani, did not offer any public response to the latest court filing."
The SEC had charged the Adanis in November 2024 with violating US securities laws. According to the regulator, the two executives orchestrated a scheme involving the payment, or promises of payment, of hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Indian government officials. The alleged objective was to secure favourable treatment for Adani Green Energy, the renewable energy arm of the Adani group, where both Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani serve as executives and directors, says the Reuters report.
Because both defendants reside in India, the SEC had earlier told the court it was facing difficulties in serving them with legal papers. This issue had contributed to the case remaining stalled for a prolonged period.
The civil action runs parallel to a related criminal case filed by US prosecutors in November 2024 against the Adanis and several other individuals. However, there have been no public developments in the criminal proceedings for more than a year, and the SEC’s civil case had also seen little progress during that time.
The latest filing clears a major procedural hurdle for the US regulator, potentially setting the stage for substantive legal arguments in a case that has drawn close attention from global investors and policymakers.
Last week, Adani Enterprises Ltd clarified that it is not involved in the legal proceedings cited in recent media reports linked to US regulators.
In its filing, Adani Enterprises referred to an earlier clarification issued in November 2024 and said there were no allegations against the company in the proceedings mentioned in the press report. “There are no allegations made against the Company in, and the Company is not party to, these proceedings,” the filing says, adding that the media report did not trigger any disclosure requirements under SEBI’s listing regulations.
Gautam Adani is the founder and chairman of the Adani Group, a sprawling Indian conglomerate with interests spanning ports, energy, infrastructure and logistics. He is India’s second-richest person and is worth about $59 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
The Adani group has been under heightened global scrutiny since early 2023, when a short-seller report raised governance and accounting concerns, triggering investigations by Indian and US authorities. While several Indian regulatory probes, including those by SEBI, have since been completed or eased, scrutiny by US agencies has continued, keeping the Adani group’s stocks prone to sharp bouts of volatility.
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