US DOJ Says Decision to Drop Adani Charges Not Tied to Planned US Investments

The US Department of Justice has denied that its decision to drop criminal charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and seven others was linked to the Adani Group's plans to invest about $10 billion in the United States, saying the prosecution was legally unsustainable and should never have been brought.

In a filing, responding to a federal judge's demand for a fuller explanation, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General R Trent McCotter rejected media reports suggesting the dismissal was influenced by the conglomerate's investment plans.

"The current or former Department attorneys... have suggested that I sought dismissal of the securities charges at least in part because of some promise by those defendants to invest money in the United States. That is false," McCotter wrote.

"I would have sought dismissal of the securities charges regardless of any mentions of investments," he added, saying he had already concluded that the case should be dropped before the issue was ever raised.

"The mention of potential investments could not have played any role." Reports in US media had linked the DOJ decision to drop charges altogether to Adani hiring a new legal team led by Robert J Giuffra Jr, one of President Trump's personal lawyers and the co-chairman of the prominent firm Sullivan & Cromwell.

According to a May 14 report in the New York Times, Giuffra had made a presentation of about 100 slides in meetings at the Justice Department's headquarters in Washington in April this year, outlining why prosecutors lacked basic evidence, as well as the jurisdiction even to bring the case.

In one of the slides, he reportedly made an unusual offer: If prosecutors dropped the charges, Adani would be willing to invest $10 billion in the American economy and create 15,000 jobs, echoing a pledge he had made in the wake of Trump's election last year.

McCotter said such stories were "unethically fed" by current or former Department attorneys.

DOJ had in 2024 under the previous Biden administration indicted Adani and others for allegedly being involved in a scheme to bribe Indian government officials to the tune of $250 million and lie to investors to receive billions more in investments from other entities, during which alleged scheme Adani Green Energy Ltd raised at least $175 million from US investors.

The filing came after US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis described the department's earlier motion to dismiss the indictment as "terse, bland, and conclusory" and ordered prosecutors to explain why they wanted the case thrown out with prejudice.

The DOJ said the prosecution should be abandoned because it was fundamentally flawed.

McCotter said the alleged conduct occurred almost entirely in India, Indian authorities had investigated the allegations and found no actionable misconduct, investors suffered no losses, key evidence and witnesses were outside the United States, and the defendants were unlikely to ever appear before a US court.

"The decision to seek dismissal was not a close call," he wrote.

The department also argued the securities fraud charges should never have been brought because the alleged conduct fell largely outside US jurisdiction and the legal theory underpinning the case was weak.

It further said the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges no longer fit the Trump administration's enforcement policy, which prioritises cases affecting US national security, American companies or transnational criminal organisations.

"The FCPA charges should have been dismissed a year ago," McCotter wrote.

The filing urged the court to promptly grant the government's motion, saying continued judicial scrutiny would improperly intrude on the executive branch's exclusive authority over prosecutorial decisions and leave defendants "in limbo on charges that should have been dropped a year ago - or never brought in the first place".