The US Justice Department (DOJ) has explained its decision not to pursue fraud charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, who was initially targeted under the administration of President Joe Biden.
A US judge in June ordered prosecutors to justify their decision to drop their case against Adani, saying federal prosecutors did not sufficiently explain their decision.
Prosecutors had said in May that they do not intend to pursue the case, which charged Adani with securities fraud and wire fraud stemming from an alleged bribery scheme.
The case is “primarily foreign, hard to prove, and inconsistent with the agency’s current priorities,” the DOJ said in a ten-page submission on Saturday, Reuters reported.
It listed reasons why it sought to dismiss all charges with prejudice against Adani and other defendants.
In the latest filing, the DOJ sought to shift the blame to prosecutors under the Biden administration for initiating a “baseless case against Adani with little chance of success.”
“The indictment was unsealed in the final days of the prior administration, apparently as a ‘name and shame’ designed to levy accusations without any realistic prospect of a trial ever occurring,” the DOJ’s court filing said.
The DOJ submission says federal attorneys should not prosecute a “foreign case” of alleged conduct that involves “no criminal organizations and no US companies, and does not affect national security.”
“The alleged ‘payments’ in this case were made by Indian nationals, working for Indian companies, to the Indian government, with no US interests implicated in any way,” the filing says.
The 2024 case charged Adani with agreeing to bribe Indian government officials to get approval for a group arm to develop a solar energy plant. The charges also allege that Adani misled US investors by providing reassuring information about his company’s anti-corruption practices.
The Adani Group has consistently denied the charges, and Gautam Adani has not appeared in a US court to respond to them.
Reuters reported that US judges have little discretion to force prosecutors to pursue criminal cases.
The charges, however, remain officially pending until they are dismissed.
Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani had in May agreed to settle an SEC lawsuit by paying a combined $18 million in penalties without admitting or denying the charges.
Gautam Adani has been the target of India’s opposition parties, who claim that his conglomerate has been protected by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
Modi’s opponents say he has longstanding ties with Adani going back nearly two decades to when Modi was chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, to which the Adanis also belong.
They accuse the government of favoring the group in business deals, charges the Indian government has rejected as “wild allegations.”