US prosecutors have charged top officials of India's Adani Group with bribery. In the document, they have highlighted Gautam Adani's nephew Sagar Adani. Sagar Adani, the nephew of Adani Group co-founder Gautam Adani, has information on his mobile phone including the amount of bribes paid to Indian officials, the names of government officials and the amount of solar power to be purchased in return. According to court documents, the information was referred to by US prosecutors as 'bribe notes'.
In this bribe note, Sagar Adani mentioned the details of the bribe amount, who was bribed and how many megawatts of electricity it was in exchange for. He also mentioned the bribe rate per MW. In a WhatsApp message in 2020, Sagar Adani said, 'Yes…but it's quite difficult to prevent it from being visible.'
Details of allegations against Adani Group
Last Wednesday, US prosecutors indicted Sagar Adani, Gautam Adani and six others in a $265 million corruption case. They allege that the money was paid to bribe government officials to get power supply contracts, through which they expected to make $2 billion in profits over 20 years.
At the same time, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a parallel civil suit over the allegations.
The Adani Group in a statement termed the allegation as 'baseless'. They said they would take 'all legal steps' in this regard.
Background of Sagar Adani
A few months ago, Gautam Adani clarified his retirement plans. In an interview, he also revealed the succession plan. Accordingly, the Adani family will have Gautam Adani's two sons and two nephews as equal partners under a family trust. Gautam Adani appoints his heirs through a trust and Gautam Adani's sons Karan and Jeet Adani and nephews Pranab and Sagar are equal partners. Pranab is the son of Gautam Adani's elder brother Vinod Shantilal Adani and Sagar is the son of his second brother Rajesh Adani.
Sagar Adani (30) joined the Adani Group after completing his graduation from Brown University in the US in 2015. Sagar heads the power business and finance side of the Adani Group, and is credited with establishing Adani Green Energy's solar and wind energy portfolio.
Sagar Adani is currently focusing on renewable energy projects and plans to build the world's largest renewable energy park by 2030. As mentioned on the Adani Group website, Sagar Adani is currently looking after the corporate structure, strategic and financial aspects of Adani Green Energy.
Bribery notes and court documents
Sagar Adani used to keep details of bribes in his 'bribe notes', prosecutors' investigation revealed. In a WhatsApp message in February 2021, he noted, 'We have doubled the incentives for this approval.'
In July 2021, Sagar Adani paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to convince the government of the Indian state of Odisha to buy 500 MW of electricity. A month later, he and Gautam Adani offered nearly $200 million in bribes to Andhra Pradesh government officials for a 7,000 megawatt power project, according to court documents.
Attempts to recover bribe money
Between April and June 2022, Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani held several meetings with the chairman and other officials of Azure, an Indian power company. In these meetings, they try to collect bribes from Azure. Azure said in a statement that it is cooperating with regulatory authorities in taking action against its former directors and officers.
In a talk with Indian students in 2020, Sagar Adani said, 'Anything you do in business, every task inevitably involves risk.'
