The United States SEC’s (Securities Exchange Commission’s) civil fraud lawsuit against billionaire Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani is reported to have moved forward after over a year of procedural chess between Washington and New Delhi.
According to a report by Reuters, the breakthrough came in a Friday filing in a Brooklyn, New York federal court. For 14 months, the SEC had been unable to ‘serve’ the defendants, a necessary legal step to start a trial as the Union Law Ministry repeatedly blocked service attempts on technical grounds.
By agreeing to have their U.S.-based counsel, including prominent Wall Street lawyer Robert Giuffra Jr., accept the summons, the Adanis have cleared the path for the regulator’s case to proceed.
The SEC and lawyers for the Adani family reached an agreement on Friday. This allows the civil lawsuit to proceed in a Brooklyn federal court.
Why had the case been stalled for 14 months?
The case had been in a state of suspended animation due to a dispute over the Hague Convention, the international treaty used to serve legal papers across borders.
The SEC alleged that the Union Law Ministry rejected their requests twice—first in May 2025 over the absence of “ink signatures” and again in December 2025, questioning the SEC’s authority.
Frustrated by these delays, the SEC recently petitioned U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis to allow service via email. However, the Adanis’ legal team stepped in this week, proposing a “stipulation” to accept the papers through their attorneys.
If the judge finalizes this resolution, the defendants will have 90 days to respond to the complaint, which can include requests for a motion to dismiss from the Adanis.
The $265 million allegation: Bribery
The SEC charged the Adanis in November 2024 with violating U.S. securities law by orchestrating a scheme to pay or promise to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Indian government officials to secure lucrative solar power contracts for Adani Green Energy.
The SEC’s jurisdiction in a case of bribing Indian government officials stems from a September 2021 bond offering. The agency alleges that while the Adanis were reportedly “greasing wheels” in India, they were also raising money from U.S. investors.
As a result, the SEC is claiming that the Adanis raised a reported amount of $175 million from American investors under false pretenses triggering the U.S. securities fraud charges.
While the Adani Group has consistently labeled the charges “baseless,” the market remains on edge. According to a report by Bloomberg, the news of the SEC’s latest procedural push last week wiped out almost $13 billion in combined market value on Jan 23.
Adani Green Energy’s statement on the case
In a filing to the stock exchanges late Friday, Adani Green Energy said, “The Company is not a party to these proceedings, and no charges have been brought against it. Further, as clarified in our intimation to the stock exchanges dated November 27, 2024 (1:16:32hrs), the Defendants have not been charged with violation/(s) of the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act i.e. there are no charges of bribery or corruption against the Defendants. The SEC proceedings are civil in nature.”
While the SEC handles this civil case, a separate criminal case remains open. There have been no public updates on the criminal charges for more than a year. There still hasn’t been any movement in the criminal case.