Adani Group seeks amicable settlement with Indian market regulator

The Adani Group, a major Indian conglomerate, is currently seeking a settlement with the Indian Securities and Exchange Board (SEBI). SEBI is investigating allegations that the group violated public participation regulations in some of its publicly traded companies. Specifically, the allegations target Adani Enterprises, Adani Power, Adani Ports, and Adani Energy, accusing them of incorrectly categorizing certain unit holdings. Since 2020, SEBI has been pursuing the matter to potentially recover a sum of about 25 billion rupees (approximately 295 million US dollars) from the involved parties. Now, Adani Enterprises and director Vinay Prakash, along with Ameet Desai, a director of Ambuja Cements, are seeking an amicable resolution of the dispute. Emerging India Focus Funds (EIFF), a Mauritius-based foreign fund linked to Vinod Adani, brother of the group chairman Gautam Adani, has also proposed a settlement of 2.8 million rupees (around 33,035 US dollars). These efforts follow a show-cause notice from SEBI issued on September 27 to about 30 units of the group. Internally, the Adani Group regards itself as not guilty of the accusations and views the settlement proposals purely as a precautionary measure. Notably, shortly before, U.S. authorities had investigated Gautam Adani and senior members of the Adani Group, accusing them of paying bribes amounting to 265 million US dollars to secure Indian power supply contracts and deceiving U.S. investors in capital fundraising. The Adani Group has described these allegations as "baseless.