By Aditya Kalra and Aditi Shah

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – In March, Adani Group’s chief financial officer wrote an email to one of its lenders, calling a media report about the group’s alleged bribery investigation in the United States “baseless.” That email has also been marked to chief financial officer Sagar Adani.

The same week on March 11, the Adani Group had also issued a statement saying it was “not aware of any (US) investigation” against its 62-year-old billionaire chairman Gautam Adani.

But exactly one year ago, in March 2023, FBI special agents had contacted Sagar Adani with a search warrant in the United States, sent him a grand jury subpoena, and seized his electronic devices. Gautam Adani then emailed himself photographs of each page of the search warrant and subpoena.

Those details, contained in a US indictment made public this week, have reignited a debate over disclosure standards at the $143 billion gateway-to-energy conglomerate, as prosecutors allege Adanis made “false” and “misleading” statements to stock exchanges, the public , financial institutions and investors.

Sagar Adani, his uncle Gautam, one of the world’s richest men, and six others were charged with fraud by U.S. prosecutors for their alleged roles in a $265 million scheme to bribe Indian officials to secure power deals while falsely touting the company’s compliance with anti-bribery laws when they raised money from US investors.

Hit by Hindenburg Research’s scathing 2023 report on corporate mismanagement and use of tax havens – which Adani denied – the conglomerate since last year has repeatedly said its corporate governance standards are impeccable, saying it remains “confident in our governance and disclosure standards”.

The US indictment shows that prosecutors have found evidence to the contrary.

Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani “not only concealed the bribery scheme from financial institutions and investors in the United States and elsewhere, but also caused others to make false and misleading statements about their awareness and knowledge,” the charging document says.

The Adani Group has said all allegations are “baseless and denied”. It did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

India’s markets regulator is conducting preliminary checks to see if the disclosures were inadequate and if they violated local market rules, a SEBI official told Reuters. SEBI did not respond to a request for comment.

“SEBI should issue a notice to the Adani Group companies about the inadequate disclosures,” said Shriram Subramanian, founder of proxy advisory firm InGovern Research Services.

“FALSE” INFORMATION

Corporate governance within the group has been a point of contention since Hindenburg alleged in 2023 that Adanis engaged in “an open and repeated breach of Indian disclosure laws”.

Adani responded to Hindenburg by saying its company has “adopted the best global disclosures and standards”.

The documents released by US authorities said that every year between 2021 and 2024, group company Adani Green published annual reports that included “false and misleading statements” about its anti-bribery practices.

“The Adani group may argue the merits of the investigations, but as the US prosecution notes, the disclosures in the annual reports were against established standards of good corporate governance,” added InGovern’s Subramanian.

The Adanis also “made or caused others” to make false statements related to the US government’s investigation in public statements to the media, markets and Indian stock exchanges, US authorities allege.

In March 2024, Adani Green issued a disclosure to stock exchanges in India that US prosecutors said “falsely stated, among other things, that … (it) has not received any notification from the Department of Justice”.

India’s BSE and NSE exchanges did not respond to Reuters queries, nor did the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, which also oversees financial disclosures.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Aditi Shah; Editing by Jason Neely)