Gautam Adani on Regulatory Navigation

On November 20, 2024 the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn unsealed a five-count criminal indictment charging Adani and executives with paying over $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials across Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, J&K and Tamil Nadu to secure energy contracts. In May 2026 the second Trump DOJ moved to dismiss the case with prejudice, and in August 2026 Judge Garaufis approved the dismissal in a 45-page order he described as 'highly unusual' and strongly criticized.

Eighteen months after the original Hindenburg report, the short seller returned on August 12, 2024 with a fresh attack — this time alleging that Madhabi Puri Buch, chair of SEBI since 2022, had a conflict of interest in the Adani matter due to previous investments. Adani companies lost $2.43 billion of market value on the day, recovering from intraday losses of more than $13 billion.

Buch called Hindenburg's allegations an attempt at 'character assassination' following SEBI's enforcement action and a show-cause notice to the short seller for violating Indian rules. SEBI separately asserted that the Adani allegations had been duly investigated, signaling that the regulator was not conceding investigative ground despite the personal attack on its chair.

The report accused the group of previously being the focus of four major government fraud investigations totaling an estimated $17 billion in alleged money laundering, taxpayer-fund theft and corruption. Adani family members were alleged to have cooperated to create offshore shell entities in Mauritius, the UAE and Caribbean islands, generating forged import/export documentation to manufacture turnover and siphon money from listed entities.

Hindenburg identified 38 Mauritius shell entities controlled by Vinod Adani or close associates, plus entities in Cyprus, the UAE, Singapore and several Caribbean islands. Many had no employees, independent addresses or phone numbers, yet collectively moved billions of dollars into Indian Adani entities, often without disclosure of the related-party nature of the deals — a direct circumvention of Indian securities laws, in the report's framing.

The report quoted a former Adani executive alleging that SEBI officials personally benefited from the system: 'It's not a blind eye... The whole system is very much working hand in glove. People know about it. SEBI knows about it.' The framing alleged regulator complicity, escalating the accusations from corporate governance to systemic capture.