The US Justice Department officially moved to drop its fraud case against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, according to a Monday federal court filing, ending a years-long prosecution for allegedly participating in a $250 million bribery scheme for a major solar project. 

In a short filing on Monday, the prosecutors said the Justice Department “has reviewed this case and has decided, in its prosecutorial discretion, not to devote further resources to these criminal charges against individual defendants.”

The move to end Adani’s prosecution was expected after the Trump administration suspended enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act last year, which the Justice Department used to charge the billionaire in 2024.

Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis, a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York, must still approve the move to drop the charges.

Earlier on Monday, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said it also settled with Adani Enterprises Limited for violating sanctions against Iran, agreeing to drop a civil case against the billionaire’s business for a $275 million settlement.

Days earlier, the Securities and Exchange Commission also settled a civil fraud lawsuit with Adani, with the billionaire and his nephew Sagar Adani agreeing to pay $18 million while not admitting to any wrongdoing.

Forbes Valuation

Forbes estimated Adani’s net worth at $80.8 billion, making him the 25th-wealthiest person in the world and the second-wealthiest person in India, behind only Mukesh Ambani. Adani’s fortune is primarily derived from his ownership of the Adani Group, an Indian multinational conglomerate involved in energy and transportation, which serves as the largest airport manager in the country.

What To Watch For

Last week, the New York Times reported the Justice Department was considering dropping charges against Adani after the billionaire hired a new legal team headed by Robert J. Giuffra Jr., the co-chair of Sullivan & Cromwell and President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney.

According to the report, Giuffra presented Justice Department prosecutors with an unusual plan: if prosecutors dropped charges against the billionaire, he was prepared to invest $10 billion in the United States and create 15,000 jobs, according to the report. 

Adani had previously made the same promise immediately after Trump was elected in 2024. 

Reuters confirmed the reporting on Monday, citing a source familiar with the matter, and Giuffra reportedly told prosecutors that Adani’s planned investment could not go through due to the criminal case against him. (Forbes)

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US authorities plan to drop fraud charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, which were first unveiled in 2024, according to a Bloomberg report citing persons familiar with the matter. 

In a significant breakthrough for the Adani Group, the US Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could resolve charges related to Gautam Adani as soon as this week, roughly 18 months after they accused the Indian magnate of involvement in a bribery and fraud scheme.

Adani’s hiring of Robert Giuffra, one of US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers, and an offer to invest $10 billion in the US economy played a key role in the US government’s decision, a report in the New York Times added.

In 2024, the US Attorney’s office in New York’s Brooklyn released a criminal indictment which alleged that Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani and other executives were involved in a scheme to bribe Indian government officials in an effort to secure a solar energy contract worth billions of dollars. In addition, the indictment alleged that the Adanis subsequently misled investors about the bribery scheme as they attempted to court investments from America and international investors.

“As alleged in the indictment, between approximately 2020 and 2024, the defendants agreed to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to obtain lucrative solar energy supply contracts with the Indian government, which were projected to generate more than $2 billion in profits after tax over an approximately 20-year period (the Bribery Scheme),” reads the indictment, which alleges that Adani personally met with an Indian government official to discuss the bribery scheme.

The legal charges against the Adani group represented a serious challenge to the firm’s ability to conduct business in the United States. For its part, the Adani Group dismissed the charges as “baseless”.

“Despite all the noise, the facts are that no one from the Adani Group has been charged with violating the FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) or conspiring to obstruct justice,” said Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani at the firm’s Annual General Meeting in June last year. 

Even as the legal process surrounding the bribery and fraud charges played out in the US system, the Adani group built a substantial influence operation in Washington in an effort to address the charges with the Trump administration. 

Adani Green Energy Limited was the third largest Indian lobbying spender in 2025, with a $50,000 lobbying spend on two firms – Kirkland and Ellis LLP and Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart and Sullivan LLP. Both firms focused on “green energy issues and related criminal and civil matters”. Adani North America and affiliates are also registered as a lobbying firm on behalf of the Adani group.

According to the New York Times, Adani lawyer Robert Giuffra met with Justice Department officials last month in Washington and argued that US prosecutors did not have the evidence or jurisdiction to bring a case against the Adanis.

In addition, Giuffra outlined the group’s willingness to invest $10 billion in the American economy and create 15,000 jobs if the charges were dropped. This offer piqued the interest of senior Justice Department officials, the NYT reported. (Hindustan Times)

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Gautam Adani, founder and chairman of the Adani Group, is now the richest person in Asia. The billionaire has overtaken Mukesh Ambani, the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries. This comes on the back of gains in Adani Group stock values.

Ambani was Asia’s richest for many years before this shift. Now, Adani’s wealth stands at $92.6 billion while Ambani’s wealth is about $90.8 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaire Index. Both tycoons are among the top 20 richest people in the world. 

Interestingly, the share price of Adani Group companies surged today. The Adani Power share price was up nearly 1 per cent. Adani Total Gas was up over 2 per cent. Adani Green Energy gained 0.44 per cent while Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone were up 1.6 per cent. Many other Adani firms were also trading in the green.

However, the ranking changes often as wealth figures are based on stock prices and business performance. Hence, the shift reflects swings in global markets.

While Adani Group’s businesses include infrastructure, energy and logistics. The Reliance Industries — led by Ambani — is strong in energy, telecom and retail. 

Top 20 Richest People (Global) – April 2026

According to the index, seven of the world’s 20 richest individuals have recorded declines in 2026. Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, has taken the sharpest hit, losing $44 billion.

Other than Adani and Ambani, the other big names from India in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index include:-

(NDTV)

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A U.S. agency that agreed to lend more than $500 million to a Sri Lanka port development backed by the Adani Group said it is still conducting due diligence on the project in the wake of bribery allegations against the group’s billionaire founder Gautam Adani and other top executives, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday.

The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation has not reached a final agreement on the loan, an official with the agency said in an email to Bloomberg.

“We continue to conduct due diligence to ensure that all aspects of the project meet our rigorous standards before any loan disbursements are made,” the official said, according to the report.

Last November, the agency said it would provide $553 million in financing for the port terminal project in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. The project is partly owned by India’s Adani Group. The joint funding was seen as a strategic move to curtail the growing Chinese influence in Sri Lanka.

But last week, the U.S. authorities charged Adani and seven other people with agreeing to pay bribes to Indian government officials to obtain contracts that could yield $2 billion of profit over 20 years as well as to develop India’s largest solar power project.

The Adani Group has said the accusations as well as those levelled by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a parallel civil case are “baseless and denied” and that it will seek “all possible legal recourse.”

But the allegations have already led to Kenya cancelling a contract given to the Adani Group to upgrade Nairobi airport and calls in Australia for the cancellation of a coal mining contract in Queensland.

Although both deals, particularly the Kenya airport one reportedly faced significant local opposition even before the U.S. indictment, some reports allege the Kenya cancellation and the protests in Australia are due to American pressure. (Strat News Global)

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