By Aditya Kalra and Aditi Shah

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Adani Group’s finance chief wrote an email to one of its lenders in March, calling a media report on the group’s alleged corruption investigation in the United States “baseless” . This email was also addressed to Sagar Adani, a senior finance official.

The same week of March 11, the Adani group also issued a statement affirming that it was “not aware of any (American) investigation” against its 62-year-old billionaire chairman, Gautam Adani.

But exactly one year ago, in March 2023, FBI special agents approached Sagar Adani with a search warrant in the United States, served him with a grand jury subpoena, and seized his electronic devices. Gautam Adani then emailed himself photographs of each page of this search warrant and subpoena.

The details, contained in a U.S. indictment made public this week, have reignited debate over disclosure standards within the $143 billion ports and energy conglomerate, as prosecutors allege the Adanis made “false” and “misleading” statements to the stock exchanges and to the public. , financial institutions and investors.

Sagar Adani, his uncle Gautam, one of the world’s richest men, and six others have been indicted on fraud charges by U.S. prosecutors for their alleged role in a $265 million scheme to bribe Indian officials to securing electricity supply contracts, while, at the same time, falsely touting the company’s compliance with anti-corruption laws when raising funds from US investors.

Hit by Hindenburg Research’s scathing 2023 report on corporate mismanagement and the use of tax havens – which Adani has denied – the conglomerate has repeatedly said since last year that its corporate governance standards company were impeccable, saying it remained “confident in our governance and disclosure standards.”

The U.S. indictment shows prosecutors found evidence to the contrary.

Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani “not only concealed the bribery scheme from financial institutions and investors in the United States and elsewhere, but also induced others to make false and misleading statements regarding their knowledge and knowledge,” the indictment states.

Adani Group said all allegations were “baseless and denied”. He did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

India’s market regulator is carrying out preliminary checks to see if the information provided was inadequate and violated local market regulations, a SEBI official told Reuters. SEBI did not respond to a request for comment.

“SEBI should issue a show cause notice to Adani group companies regarding insufficient information,” said Shriram Subramanian, founder of proxy advisory firm InGovern Research Services.

“False” disclosures

Corporate governance within the group has been a topic of discussion since Hindenburg claimed in 2023 that Adanis had engaged in “open and repeated violation of Indian disclosure laws”.

Adani responded to Hindenburg by saying its companies had “adopted the best global information and standards”.

Documents made public by US authorities indicate that each year between 2021 and 2024, the Adani Green group company publicly published annual reports containing “false and misleading statements” about its anti-corruption practices.

“The Adani Group may dispute the materiality of the investigations, but as the US indictment reports note, the information contained in the annual reports went against established norms of good corporate governance,” added Subramanian of InGovern.

The Adanis also “made or caused others” to make false statements regarding the U.S. government’s investigation in public statements to Indian media, markets and stock exchanges, U.S. authorities allege.

In March 2024, Adani Green issued a statement to Indian stock exchanges that, according to U.S. prosecutors, “falsely stated, among other things, that… (she) received no notification from the Department of Justice.”

India’s BSE and NSE exchanges did not respond to Reuters’ questions, nor did the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, which also oversees financial reporting.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Aditi Shah; Editing by Jason Neely)