New Orleans, We don’t regularly follow all of the times that billionaires and those who want to be are investigated or charged by the US or the Security and Exchange Commission for stock dealings, but we have kept our eyes on the cases involving Gautam Adani, reportedly now the richest man in India. Adani companies won a bid to redevelop the megaslum Dharavi in central Mumbai, where we have worked for almost two decades. The combination of habitation and livelihood in Dharavi have led people as diverse as Britain’s King Charles to hold the community as a model of sustainability. The thirty-year redevelopment plan entails fundamental changes, and ACORN has been deeply involved in the coalition efforts to guarantee existing residents the right of return and adequate housing. In short, we have to pay attention for our members’ interests. Recent developments in the case make us wonder whether we’re the only ones with a memory here.
Adani and his companies were accused of bribery of state officials in India to entice them to buy power from one of his subsidiaries that had built a giant solar facility. The prices weren’t competitive, which triggered the bribes, which were even recorded as incentives on the Adani company books. The SEC also brought charges based on less than full and honest disclosures on offerings on Adani-related securities. All of these charges originated during the Biden administration under the Foreign Practices Corruption Act.
New developments were reported recently. A meeting was held with the Justice Department after Adani hired a new legal team with “one of President Trump’s personal lawyers and the co-chairmen of the prominent firm Sullivan & Cromwell.” Supposedly, they are preparing to settle both the Treasury case on foreign corruption and the SEC case with undisclosed “financial penalties,” which for one of the world’s richest men is likely a slap on the wrist from the looks of it. Court documents show that Gautam Adani agreed to pay civil penalties of $6 million while his nephew Sagar Adani, another leader at Adani Green Energy, agreed to pay $12 million. The proposed settlement doesn’t include an admission of guilt.
What particularly got Justice’s attention were various slides in the deck where Adani was offering to invest $10 billion in the US in projects that would employ 15,000, that “Trump could have touted as a political and economic win….” As I say, we’ve been following this, but we seem to be the only ones with a memory left. Adani made the identical proposal a year ago right after Trump’s election in November 2024. He also claimed this was not a bid to buy his way out of trouble then, no matter how it looked at the time, or for that matter, now.
We looked into these claims when we and others were discussing divestment from Adani in the wake of these charges. We found these promises fairly hard to believe – particularly in relation to job creation. Furthermore, our research has found that Adani has made bold jobs promises to other countries and failed to deliver. A mining project in Australia was promised to deliver “10,000 jobs [and] $22bn in royalties and taxes” and the resulting mine has paid no taxes and employs a fraction of the promised employment. In Kenya, leaked details of a proposed $1.85 billion deal to lease the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) to Adani caused mass protests and strikes forcing the cancellation of the agreement.
Seems like a bait and switch on these kinds of promises may be part of the Adani Group’s business model. Unfortunately, a newly appointed Justice official, who had previously advocated the charges dismissal, seems to have become even more enamored of Adani’s promises. He likings them to the way former New York City mayor, Eric Adams, had charges around inducements from Turkey dropped in exchange for immigration assistance in the city, believing that tit for tat should now be Justice policy, rather than the rule of law.
Other Justice lawyers had pushed back at dismissal for months, so we’ll have to keep watching and see if memories and the Adani track record in other countries turns out to matter. As one wag mentioned when the news came out, “it’s a good time to be a billionaire” in dealing with Trump’s Washington. Sadly, that’s probably always true. The courts will have to decide if this acceptable, but we’re not holding our breath.
– The “unusual offer” was evidently the same empty investment
> > promise he made a year ago and we wrote about for the website:
> > https://acorninternational.org/adanis-empty-promises-unraveling-a-potential-investment-mirage/
> > <https://acorninternational.org/adanis-empty-promises-unraveling-a-potential-investment-mirage/>
> > – Toney went to their “American headquarters” which was just their
> > lobbyist’s house. I can’t find the photo now.
> > – Wonder if it is worth dropping an email to these NYT reporters> > with some of these facts: nicole.hong@nytimes.com;
> > ben.protess@nytimes.com
We read with interest your story with interest today concerning the possible dropping of federal charges against Gautam Adani, and Adani’s promise that he would create “thousands of jobs” in the US.
We looked into these claims as part of our international campaign for divestment from Adani and found them fairly hard to believe – particularly in relation to job creation: https://acorninternational.org/adanis-empty-promises-unraveling-a-potential-investment-mirage/
Our reseach has found that Adani has made bold jobs promises to other countries and failed to deliver. A mining project in Australia was promised to deliver “10,000 jobs [and] $22bn in royalties and taxes” and the resulting mine has paid no taxes and employs a fraction of the promised employment. In Kenya, leaked details of a proposed $1.85 billion deal to lease the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) to Adani caused mass protests and strikes forcing the cancellation of the agreement. It is hard to believe Adani’s promises of investment and job creation.