Gautam Adani will seek to dismiss US SEC fraud case

New York: Gautam Adani, India's second richest person, will ⁠ask a US judge to dismiss ⁠the Securities and Exchange Commission's civil ‌fraud case ​against him, his lawyers said on Tuesday.

Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani were charged by the SEC in November 2024 ​with orchestrating ⁠a scheme to pay or promise to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Indian government officials ⁠to ‌benefit Adani Green Energy, where both men are executives and directors.

The ‌securities fraud case is tied to ⁠Adani Green's alleged failure to disclose the scheme in documents ‌for a $750 million bond offering ‌in 2021. In a filing in the ‌Brooklyn, New York federal court, ‌Adani's lawyers said the SEC claims were "impermissibly extraterritorial," given that the defendants and all alleged misconduct ⁠were in ⁠India, and the bonds were never traded on a US exchange.

The lawyers also said the Adanis' lack of involvement in the offering and the absence of credible evidence supporting ​the bribery scheme supported a dismissal. The SEC ​did not ​immediately respond to a request for comment.