Adani Group

On November 20, 2024 the US Department of Justice and SEC unsealed indictments and civil charges against Adani Group founder Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani, and other senior executives of Adani Green Energy, alleging they orchestrated a multi-year scheme to pay approximately $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure solar power supply contracts while raising US investor capital based on misleading anti-corruption disclosures. Adani Green's US-listed bonds and ADRs traded under the disclosures. Adani Group denied the charges and called them 'baseless'. The indictment wiped tens of billions from Adani-listed entities' market caps.

On January 24, 2023 short-seller Hindenburg Research published a multi-year investigation alleging that Adani Group entities engaged in 'brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud' through a network of offshore shell companies in Mauritius, Cyprus and the Caribbean, and that disclosed leverage levels were understated. Adani-listed equities lost more than $150 billion in market value in the weeks that followed. India's market regulator SEBI subsequently investigated some of the underlying claims; the Supreme Court of India declined in 2024 to order an SIT probe. Adani Group denied the allegations and threatened legal action against Hindenburg.

Adani Green Energy committed $70 billion over a decade to build 45 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030, including the world's largest single-location renewable energy park at Khavda, Gujarat (planned 30 GW). The buildout was on schedule as of 2024 with approximately 11 GW operational, contributing materially to India's national renewable targets. The buildout's positive climate impact is undisputed but is shadowed by the DOJ bribery indictment alleging the underlying contracts were obtained corruptly.

Adani's (now Bravus) Carmichael thermal coal mine in Queensland's Galilee Basin commenced exports in December 2021 after a decade of legal and protest opposition led by the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners, Australian environmental groups and global climate scientists. The mine, sized for up to 60 million tonnes per year of thermal coal exports primarily to India, was the first new mine in the Galilee Basin. UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Rights repeatedly raised concerns about the consultation process with Wangan and Jagalingou.