“I understand that my counsel suggested that my publicly stated intent to invest $10 billion in the United States might be part of a resolution of these matters if that was what the DOJ or SEC wanted.” That sentence comes from a sworn affidavit Gautam Adani filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and it is the first time he has acknowledged the idea in court.
Adani, the billionaire behind the Adani Group, filed it on Tuesday after Judge Nicholas Garaufis told him to say whether anything had been promised, offered or agreed in return for the Justice Department’s move to dismiss the criminal indictment brought in November 2024.
What the affidavit says
Adani said his lawyers raised the investment during settlement talks with the DOJ and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The department rejected it, he said. It later told his lawyers it “would not consider this potential investment in deciding whether to seek dismissal of the criminal case.” To the best of his knowledge, the investment “had no role” in the decision to seek dismissal.
He told the court he knew of no promise, offer or agreement tied to the dismissal. The one exception he named was settlement discussions on the SEC proceedings and a separate investigation by the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The $10 billion figure traces to a post Adani made on X on November 13, 2024. In it he announced plans to put that sum into US energy security and resilient infrastructure projects, with the potential for up to 15,000 jobs. Neither the indictment nor the SEC complaint was public then, he said, and he did not know of either filing. The affidavit does not say whether he knew about the underlying investigation before the indictment became public.
The lawyer’s declaration
A separate declaration came from Robert Giuffra, one of Adani’s lawyers. He wrote that the proposal was part of a standard “collateral consequences” argument, meant to show how the charges could hurt the group’s planned US investments and India-US trade ties.
According to the declaration, US Attorney Joseph Nocella told the defense on May 11 that any offer to resolve the criminal case through the investment was “categorically rejected.” The defense did not push it further. Nor was it folded into the resolutions discussed with the DOJ, the SEC or OFAC.
