The White House on Thursday reacted to the allegations of the US court against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani on multiple counts of $250 million worth of fraud and lying to investors about the scheme. 

Reacting to the case, the White House answered neutrally saying it shares a “strong foundation” with India and is “confident” of navigating the issue.

During the press briefing when asked about the bribery charges against Adani, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, “Obviously, we’re aware of these allegations, and I would have to refer you to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and DOJ (Department of Justice) about the specifics of those allegations against the Adani Group.”

“I will say on the US and India relationship that we believe that it stands on an extremely strong foundation anchored in ties between our people and cooperation across a full range of global issues. So what we believe and we are confident about is that we’ll navigate this issue,” she added.

Thursday morning cast a shadow on Adani Group as the Eastern District of New York court on Wednesday charged conglomerate tycoon Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani, Vneet Jaain, Ranjit Gupta, Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal, Deepak Malhotra, and Rupesh Agarwal with multiple counts of fraud and lying to investors about the scheme. 

Senior executives of an Indian renewable energy company, an American company, and a Canadian investor were involved in a bribery scheme.

They bribed Indian government officials to secure solar energy supply contracts and misrepresented their anti-bribery practices to investors. As per the court document, they also obstructed a US government investigation into the scheme.

The defendants, including Gautam and nephew Sagar, are accused of paying more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to obtain solar energy contracts worth billions of dollars for Adani Green Energy, a renewable energy company majority-owned by Adani Group. 

Following the fiasco, the stock market went haywire with 10 Adani Group companies falling by ₹2.2 lakh crore ($26.4 billion) in a single day.

Also read:

US bribery charges against Gautam Adani leads to Moody’s credit negative

Adani deems grave allegations by US Department of Justice, SEC as ‘baseless’