Dorothy

The U.S. Department of Treasury on Monday said it had agreed to a $275 million settlement with India's Adani Enterprises Ltd over the company's potential civil liability for 32 apparent violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Gautam Adani, chair of India's Adani Group, oversees a sprawling business empire spanning ports, power and infrastructure. The conglomerate comprises 11 publicly traded companies, with the Adani family holding significant majority stakes in many of them.

The people were accused of having paid Indian government officials more than $250 million in bribes to obtain solar energy supply contracts worth more than $2 billion in profits.

The Adani Group denied the allegations at the time, calling them baseless. “The Department of Justice has reviewed this case and has decided, in its prosecutorial discretion, not to devote further resources to these criminal charges against individual defendants,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

A New York federal court indicted Gautam Adani and seven others in November 2024 on criminal charges related to an alleged bribery and fraud scheme.

Although the alleged conduct at the center of the indictment occurred in India, the defendants were charged in the Brooklyn federal court because the fundraising efforts happened in the U.S.

But the company also had its critics. Short-seller Hindenburg Research, a US-based financial research firm, has accused Adani and his company of “brazen stock manipulation” and “accounting fraud.” The Adani Group labeled the claims “a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations.”