The U.S. government agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani, according to court filings published Thursday. The SEC’s case accused Adani and his company of misleading investors about whether a large solar power project in India was being supported by an alleged bribery scheme.
The SEC said the conduct involved Adani Green Energy Limited’s efforts to secure contracts connected to energy purchases in India. In the lawsuit filed in late 2024, the SEC accused the two men of promising that money would be paid to Indian government officials in exchange for government contracts, with the SEC describing the value as the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars. At the same time, the SEC said Adani Green Energy obtained several billions of dollars from Wall Street investors while those investors were allegedly assured the company had a robust anti-bribery compliance program and while senior management promised that no bribery would take place, actions the SEC said violated U.S. securities antifraud provisions.
The court documents say the proposed settlement includes civil penalties of $6 million for Gautam Adani and $12 million for Sagar Adani. The filings also state that the settlement would not include an admission of guilt. The Adani Group denied the allegations when the SEC brought the case, calling them baseless, and the Associated Press said messages left with the Adanis’ attorneys were not returned Thursday.
The filings were published as the case faced parallel scrutiny in New York criminal court. Both men were indicted in late 2024 in New York on charges that included securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, AP reported. The Associated Press said the New York Times and Bloomberg reported Thursday that those criminal charges were likely to be dropped, while it also said it did not receive responses from prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York after reaching out by message.
AP said the expectation that the criminal charges could be dropped appeared to be foreshadowed by developments after President Donald Trump was elected to a second term. In March 2025, Trump suspended the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars business bribes overseas, a step that raised expectations in India that the Adani case had been dealt a serious blow, according to AP.
Gautam Adani’s rise has also been a key part of the broader controversy around the company and its political connections. AP described how Adani became a power broker in India’s economy by building wealth in the coal business in the 1990s, then expanding into a diversified group that invested in industries including renewable energy, defense and agriculture. AP said the Adani Group’s clean energy portfolio included more than 20 gigawatts, among them what AP described as one of the world’s largest solar power plants in Tamil Nadu.
Criticism of Adani and the Adani Group has included claims of close ties to the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. AP said short-seller Hindenburg Research, a U.S.-based financial research firm, had accused Adani and his company of “brazen stock manipulation” and “accounting fraud.” AP also said the Adani Group labeled those allegations “a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations.”
AP noted that after the Brooklyn case was announced, Kenya’s president canceled multimillion-dollar deals with the Adani Group for airport modernization and energy projects, and that Adani Green Energy withdrew wind energy projects from Sri Lanka after the island nation sought to renegotiate prices. AP also said a French oil giant paused new investments.
As part of the SEC’s lawsuit, the government alleged that the company’s disclosures to investors overstated the strength of its anti-bribery compliance efforts even as the project allegedly involved bribery support. In its denial, the Adani Group rejected those allegations, setting up a settlement in the civil case alongside continuing—at least for now—questions about the underlying criminal matter and the broader fallout from the dispute.