By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff and Andrew Goudsward
May 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is close to dropping criminal fraud charges against Gautam Adani, an Indian billionaire who has promised to invest $10 billion in the U.S. economy, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Adani on Thursday also resolved a related civil fraud lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over an alleged scheme to bribe Indian government officials, subject to court approval.
The possible
dismissal of the criminal charges comes after Adani's lawyer, Robert Giuffra, who is also a personal attorney of U.S. President Donald Trump, told Justice Department officials in a presentation last month that Adani could not make that investment while the case was proceeding, one of the sources said.
Adani had publicly promised to invest that amount and create 15,000 jobs in the U.S. after Trump's victory in the 2024 election.
Giuffra spent the bulk of his 100-page presentation arguing the case was weak because it did not have proper jurisdiction and lacked evidence, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Giuffra made a similar argument in court filings in the parallel SEC case last month.
Some prosecutors made clear that the $10 billion investment would not affect the case, one of the sources said. It's unclear if others saw it differently.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bloomberg News first reported that the Justice Department was close to dismissing Adani's case.
It is the latest example of Trump's Justice Department seeking to abandon a high-profile criminal case brought by federal prosecutors during the tenure of his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.
In November 2024, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged Adani over an alleged scheme in which they said he agreed to pay about $265 million in bribes to Indian government officials so his company could win approval to develop India's largest solar power plant.
Adani and his alleged co-conspirators raised more than $3 billion in loans and bonds by hiding their corruption from lenders and investors, prosecutors said.
The Adani Group has called the allegations "baseless."
RELATED CIVIL FRAUD CASE ALSO RESOLVED
Adani also faced a related SEC civil fraud lawsuit, which the securities regulator settled on Thursday subject to court approval, court records showed. Sagar Adani, the nephew of Gautam Adani, was also facing the SEC civil claims.
Adani and his nephew would pay civil penalties of $18 million, though neither would admit or deny any wrongdoing, the court records showed.
Adani Green Energy said in a statement the two men and the SEC had filed with a New York court for the entry of a final judgement, which was now being awaited.
The Adanis' lawyers last month said their clients disputed there was any credible evidence supporting the bribery scheme alleged by the SEC.
They said the Adanis' lack of involvement in the offering, and the absence of any intent to defraud or negligence, supported a dismissal.
They also called the SEC claims "impermissibly extraterritorial," reflecting how the Adanis and all alleged misconduct were in India, and the bonds were never traded on a U.S. exchange.
The 63-year-old Adani is worth $82 billion, according to Forbes magazine, making him one of the world's richest people.
(Additonal reporting by Luc Cohen in New York and Anusha Shah in Bengaluru; writing by Scott Murdoch. Editing by Andy Sullivan, Lincoln Feast and John Mair.)
