Is hiding promise of bribe in India a crime in US? That's what CNN reports on Adanis

By Rajiv Shah
A top ex-bureaucrat -- whom I know as one of the most reasonable analysts -- has forwarded me a CNN story titled "Billionaire Gautam Adani indicted in New York on bribery charges". The ex-official has wondered why is Indian media quiet about the news. I can't say why India media is quiet, but, written by Ramishah Maruf, and datelined New York, the story quotes a US Department of Justice statement as saying that Adani and other executives were "indicted" in New York for "roles" in a multi-billion-dollar fraud scheme.

And what are these "roles"? As I went ahead reading the story, I found it stating that Adani and seven other senior business executives, including his nephew Sagar Adani, "promised" more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure solar energy contracts. "Promised, that too in India? And not given? I wondered. How could that be a crime in America, unless they tried to do it in the US?
The story quotes Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lisa Miller's statement stating that those bribes were “to lie to investors and banks to raise billions of dollars, and to obstruct justice.” It adds, "Adani personally met with an Indian government official to advance the scheme, which took place between 2020 to 2024. The defendants frequently met and discussed the bribery scheme, including evidence on several phones."

The story continues, quoting the statement by Miller, "Some of that documentation included a cell phone to extensively track specific details on the bribes, a photograph of a document summarizing various bribe amounts and PowerPoint and Excel analyses that summarized various options for paying and concealing bribe payments.”

But was Adanis' crime, that too in the US, I didn't understand. So, as I read through, I found the story summarised the crime, quoting Miller, in the following words: "Adani and his associates tried to hide these bribery schemes from US investors in order to obtain financing, including to fund those solar energy supply contracts procured through bribery.”
So hiding the promise committed in India to raise funds in the US is crime in the American scheme of things? Wow! And how were the Adanis' going to gain by hiding in the US the promise to give a bribe in India? Says the story: "The solar energy supply contracts were projected to raise more than $2 billion in profits after tax over an approximately 20-year period."

Be that as it may, just back from US, where election fever was on full swing -- whether on podcasts or on television networks -- what particularly surprised me is, the alleged promise of bribery has been made an issue in US, where the other name of bribery is lobbying. Indeed, open lobbying for politicians and funding anything and everything!

And is it legal? I haven't studied the US law carefully, but I am reminded of what Karl Marx said about capitalists -- which I read decades ago during my involvement as a student in the Left student movement in Delhi University in early 1970s.

Pointing out how capitalists, historically, have played a most revolutionary part", Marx said, wherever they have got the upper hand , they have put an end to all "idyllic relations", pitilessly tearing apart asunder the motley ties "that bound man to his 'natural superiors",' converting all relations nexus between man and man into "naked self-interest, callous 'cash payment'."

To capitalists, believed Marx, the "icy water of egotistical calculation" is important for resolving "personal worth into exchange value", placing "the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade."

And for this they have "stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe" converting all -- physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science -- into their "paid wage laborers."

So, what's the difference between what Adanis have done and what capitalists do in the US? Why is the American establishment singling out Adani, when all know what's happening in the name of lobbying happening in the US? Is it worried that, by using whatever means available (which is what capitalists always seek to do), Indian capitalists will start competing with those in America?

For more an the alleged indictment click here. Meanwhile, Indian media has started doing stories (click here and here) on the this, particularly focusing on how Adani shares have been impacted as a result of the "indictment" (click here and here).

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