U.S. nears dropping Adani bribery case after $10 billion pledge

U.S. prosecutors moved toward dropping the criminal case against Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and Vneet S. Jaain after Adani’s lawyers offered a $10 billion U.S. investment pledge and 15,000 jobs, a sharp turn in one of the most closely watched foreign bribery cases in recent memory. The shift came 17 months after federal prosecutors in Brooklyn accused the Adani group of lying to investors about payoffs in India, a reversal that raised immediate questions about how hard Washington intends to push corruption cases involving overseas business elites.

The indictment, unsealed in November 2024 in federal court in Brooklyn, was a five-count case that charged conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud, along with substantive securities fraud. Prosecutors said the alleged scheme involved more than $250 million, often reported as about $265 million, in payments to Indian government officials to secure solar-energy contracts, including work tied to Adani Green Energy Ltd. The government said the misconduct was bound up with false and misleading statements used to obtain money from U.S. investors and global financial institutions.

The criminal case was paired with civil allegations from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which said Adani misled investors about anti-bribery compliance in connection with a 2021 bond offering. On May 14, 2026, the SEC moved for final judgments by consent against Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani. Reporting said the two agreed to pay $18 million total to settle the SEC matter without admitting or denying wrongdoing, with Gautam Adani paying $6 million and Sagar Adani paying $12 million, pending court approval.

The timing was especially notable because it followed Adani’s hiring of Robert J. Giuffra, a lawyer who has represented Donald Trump, and came as President Trump has signaled a more transactional approach to justice. Prosecutors reportedly said the investment pledge would not decide the legal outcome, but the sequence of events suggested a case that had become harder to sustain in an era when corporate diplomacy, political access and market leverage can blur together.

For investors, lenders and regulators, the consequences could reach well beyond Adani Group. If the case is dropped after such a public pledge, market participants may conclude that cross-border bribery prosecutions are easier to negotiate away than to press to trial. That would carry diplomatic risk for the United States as well, especially in India, where Adani is one of the country’s most powerful industrialists and one of the world’s richest people. It would also test whether U.S. anti-corruption enforcement still deters overseas elite misconduct, or whether the rules bend when the defendant can promise enough capital, jobs and strategic value.