Indian-origin SEC officials Tejal Shah, Sanjay Wadhwa
Gautam Adani, India's second richest man, is accused of paying bribes to get contracts. This accusation has been made in America. In this case, the New York Federal Court has issued an arrest warrant against him.
The agreement has been filed in New York court. This is a kind of charge sheet. In which 8 people including Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani have been made accused. It is alleged that he offered a bribe of 265 million dollars i.e. about 2200 crore rupees to government officials to get solar energy contracts in India.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of America has made this allegation. Adani and its associates paid these alleged bribes to government officials. Because they will get about two billion dollars from this project in the next 20 years i.e. about Rs. 17 thousand crores profit was expected.
The question is that the project belonged to India, Indian officials were bribed, so why the case in America? Because the bribery was hidden from the American investors.
Gautam Adani.
What is the whole matter? The entire matter is related to Adani Green Energy and Azure Power. The case was filed in a New York court in October this year.
According to the agreement, Adani Green Energy won the contract to supply 12 GW of solar energy to the state-owned Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). Of these, Adani Green Energy will supply 8 GW and Azure Power 4 GW. SECI was supposed to sell this electricity to the country's power companies, but could not find buyers.
In this situation, Adani and its associates bribed government officials so that they could buy electricity from SECI. Deals were made with power companies of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Jammu and Kashmir.
Under these agreements, Andhra Pradesh will purchase 2,000 MW, Odisha 500 MW, Chhattisgarh 300 MW, Tamil Nadu 1,000 MW and Jammu and Kashmir 100 MW. All these contracts were signed between December 2021 and February 2022.
There are total eight accused in this entire case. Including Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani, Vineet Jain, Ranjit Gupta, Cyril Cabanis, Saurabh Agarwal, Deepak Malhotra and Rupesh Agarwal.
Learn about two cases of alleged bribery There are two cases of alleged bribery in the US against Adani and its associates. The FBI is investigating a case. While the second case is handled by the Securities Exchange Commission.
There are five important characters in the investigation against Adani and its associates. Two of them are also Indians, who are associated with the Securities Exchange Commission.
Who are the two Indians who will investigate the Adani case? 1. Sanjay Wadhwa: Sanjay Wadhwa, an American citizen of Indian origin, is the Acting Director of the Enforcement Division of the SEC. The job of this department is to take action against criminals and recover their money from investors who have suffered loss. Wadhwa assumed this responsibility on October 11 this year.
Wadhwa said in a statement that the commission will continue to 'vigorously pursue and hold accountable individuals, including senior corporate officers and directors, for their violations of securities laws. Allegedly, Gautam and Sagar Adani induced US investors to buy Adani Green bonds through an offering process that merely misrepresented that Adani Green had an anti-bribery compliance program, but the company's senior management did not pay or promise. Cyril Cabens participated in the underlying bribery scheme while serving as a director of a US public company.
A Bachelor of Business Administration graduate from Florida Atlantic University, Wadhwa also holds an LLM in Taxation from New York University School of Law. He also holds a degree from Texas Southern College of Law Houston.
Wadhwa joined Cahill Gordon & Rendell LLP in 1996 as a Tax Associate after completing his LLM. He then moved to Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates in 2000 as a Tax Associate.
He joined the US SEC in 2003 as a Staff Attorney in the Enforcement Division and advanced to numerous positions including Branch Chief, Assistant Director, Deputy Chief of the Market Abuse Unit, Associate Director, and Senior Associate Director of the New York Regional Office. After this, he was appointed Deputy Director of Enforcement Department in 2021 and Acting Director in 2024 in October this year.
Tejal d. Shah, an Indian-origin SEC official.
2. Tejal d. Shah: Associate Regional Director of the Enforcement Division in the New York Office of the SEC. The investigation into the alleged bribery is being conducted under the supervision of Tejal Shah. She has been associated with the SEC since 2014. He was appointed as Associate Director only last year.
Meanwhile, the SEC's investigation into Adani Green is being conducted by Nicholas Karasimus, Stuart Gilson, Christopher M. Colorado and Alison Cohn of the New York Regional Office.
Shah holds degrees in policy analysis and management from Cornell University, after which he studied law at New York University.
He joined Cooley LLP in 2006 as an Associate. Shah then moved to the SEC in 2014 as Senior Counsel in the Division of Enforcement, after which he also held other positions in the unit. Enforcement Counsel to the Chairman from May–August 2021, after which she was appointed Senior Special Advisor to the Director of Enforcement. She was then appointed Associate Regional Director in January 2023, a post she currently holds.
What will happen next in this matter? Adani Group has rejected these allegations as baseless. The Adani Group has issued a statement saying that the allegations leveled against the directors of Adani Green Energy are baseless. The Adani Group has said it will take legal action.
As soon as the agreement is reached, an arrest warrant is issued against the accused. In such a situation the accused has to present his case himself or through a lawyer.
Adani and its partners may challenge the agreement after it is reached. If relief is not found here, one can go to the Supreme Court.
The court imposed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) on the accused in the alleged bribery case. Conviction under this Act is punishable with imprisonment for five years or fine or both.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
