NEW DELHI, India: After two earlier requests were rejected by the Government of India, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has now sought permission from a U.S. court to directly email a summons to Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and group executive Sagar Adani.
The SEC has accused the Adani Group of alleged fraud and a US$265 million bribery scheme.
This is the biggest and most well-known legal case in the U.S. involving an Indian business group. The U.S. securities regulator (SEC) has been trying since last year to serve legal notices on the Adani Group founder and his nephew.
The Adani Group has called the claims false and said it will use every legal option to defend itself. The company did not reply right away to Reuters' request for comment on the SEC's latest court filing dated January 21.
In a message to a New York court, the SEC said it cannot deliver the summons through the usual legal process and asked to be allowed to send the notices directly by email to the Adani executives.
India's law ministry also did not reply to Reuters' request for comment. In the past, it has said this is a legal matter between private companies and the United States.
The charges, made public in November 2024, say Adani executives participated in a plan to pay bribes to Indian officials to secure deals to sell electricity from Adani Green Energy, part of the Adani Group.
The SEC also says the executives misled U.S. investors by giving false information about the company's anti-corruption rules.
The SEC said India twice refused to help deliver the summons due to technical issues, such as missing signatures and seals, even though such rules are not required for serving people in another country under the Hague Convention.
In the second refusal last December, India's law ministry also seemed to question whether the SEC had the right to make the request.
Because of this, the SEC said that additional attempts through the same legal route are unlikely to succeed.
Relations between India and the U.S. have also worsened recently, following President Donald Trump's imposition of tariffs.
