US probing Adani entity, Gautam Adani over potential bribery

New Delhi: Authorities in the US are probing whether an Adani entity or people including Gautam Adani linked to the company engaged in bribery paying officials in India for ‘ favourable treatment’ of an energy project, The Wire reported citing Bloomberg.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the Justice Department’s fraud unit in Washington are also looking at energy company Azure Power Global Ltd, according to the report.

However, Adani Group responded in a mail to a press question that ‘We are not aware of any investigation against our chairman’.

‘As a business group that operates with the highest standards of governance, we are subject to and fully compliant with anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws in India and other countries,’ it added.

Meanwhile, following the reports of probe, Adani companies shares have been declined which Bloomberg reportedly linked to the US prosecutors probing whether the conglomerate engaged in bribery.

The report said “that US prosecutors have widened their probe of the port-to-power conglomerate to focus on whether it may have engaged in bribery.”

Adani Group came up smiling from serious charges leveled against it by a short-seller based in the US in January last year.

Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg as per the US laws federal prosecutors can dig into foreign corruption allegations if they ‘involve certain links to American investors or markets’.

The report further said that: “Gautam Adani, his company and Azure haven’t been charged with wrongdoing by the Justice Department, and investigations don’t always lead to prosecutions.”