The Adani Group has revived its plan of making major investments for infrastructure in the US amid high hopes after the Donald Trump administration ordered a pause of enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
According to a report by the Financial Times citing four sources, the Gautam Adani-led conglomerate is relooking into its potential plans to fund projects in several US sectors despite criminal charges against the billionaire and his officials for bribery.
With the revived plans, the Adani Group could invest projects in sectors such as nuclear power and utilities, as well as an East Coast port, as per the report.
After Trump was elected as the US President last year, Gautam Adani had pledged to invest $10 billion in the US, which would create up to 15,000 jobs. However, those plans were widely believed to have gone down the drain after Adani and seven others were indicted by US authorities weeks later.
The FT report, quoting one of the sources close to Adani, said Trump’s February order to halt the corrupt practices Act has come as a “big relief” within the conglomerate. They believe that the move would eventually quash the cases against them.
“Once Trump came in, we have reactivated some plans,” one of the sources was quoted as saying, who however noted that there were still worries about the “indefinite nature of the investigation”.
“We know what we want to do, but we will wait until this [case] resolves,” another source was quoted as saying by the publication.
Gautam Adani’s US troubles
Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani and other top officials of the company are being indicted by the US Department of Justice for his role in an alleged years-long scheme to pay USD 250 million bribes to Indian officials in exchange for favourable solar power contracts.
The Adani group has said that the allegations by the Department of Justice and the SEC are “baseless” and has denied them.
“The allegations made by the US Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission against directors of Adani Green are baseless and denied,” a spokesperson for the Adani Group had said in a statement.
In 2023 the conglomerate was accused by U.S.-based short-seller Hindenburg Research, which disbanded earlier this year, of improper use of offshore tax havens and stock manipulation that sparked a $150 billion rout in shares of the group’s companies. Adani denied those allegations.
