The U.S. Department of Justice has taken its fight to end the Adani-linked criminal case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking the appeals court to compel a Brooklyn judge to dismiss the remaining charges against five defendants, according to a detailed analysis of the court filings by the Volkov Law Group's Corruption, Crime & Compliance blog.
Source: Volkov Law Group — Corruption, Crime & Compliance
On August 10, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis dismissed the fraud charges against Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and Vneet Jaain with prejudice in a 47-page opinion, but reserved judgment on the bribery-conspiracy and obstruction counts against the five remaining defendants — Ranjit Gupta, Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal, Deepak Malhotra and Rupesh Agarwal — saying the government had not given a sufficient reason to end those counts. The dismissal of the Adani charges was not a finding on the merits of the allegations.
A judge asking to be heard
In a letter reported by MLex on September 30, Judge Garaufis asked the Second Circuit for permission to address the issues raised in the Justice Department's mandamus petition and recommended Deidre von Dornum, a partner at Sher Tremonte LLP, to serve as amicus counsel to argue the merits of his challenged decision.
Source: MLex
The case began with a 2024 indictment alleging that Adani and others agreed to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to help secure a solar-energy project and misled U.S. investors about anti-corruption practices. Those were allegations; the Adani Group has consistently denied wrongdoing, and Gautam Adani never appeared in a U.S. court on the charges.
Why the judge pushed back
The Justice Department moved on May 18 to dismiss the whole indictment, at first giving a one-sentence reason. In a July filing, senior official Trent McCotter argued the case was primarily foreign, that India had a stronger interest in it, that it risked diplomatic friction and did not fit current foreign-bribery priorities, and denied that any investment promise drove the decision. Adani stated in an affidavit that there was no understanding, while acknowledging his lawyers had proposed his $10 billion U.S. investment pledge as part of a possible resolution — a proposal a U.S. Attorney's email rejected, according to the filings described by Volkov Law.
Judge Garaufis concluded the investment pledge did not factor into the dismissal decision, Reuters and AFP reported in August, but wrote that the irregularities in how the decision was made were concerning. The Second Circuit fight now decides only the fate of the two remaining counts against the five defendants, not the already-dismissed charges against the Adanis.