McCotter told a federal judge the Adani case was dropped because the evidence was weak and the conduct fell outside U.S. jurisdiction, not because of a proposed $10B investment pledge.
Alpha Score of 48 reflects weak overall profile with moderate momentum, poor value, moderate quality, weak sentiment.
The U.S. Department of Justice told a federal judge it dropped criminal charges against Gautam Adani and seven co-defendants because the case was legally unsustainable, not because of a proposed $10 billion investment in the American economy. Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter's filing directly rejected media reports that the dismissal was tied to the Adani Group's investment plans.
"The mention of potential investments could not have played any role," McCotter wrote. He said current or former department attorneys had "unethically fed" stories suggesting the case was dismissed in exchange for a job-creating pledge. McCotter stated he had already decided to seek dismissal before the investment offer was raised.
The filing responded to U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who described the government's earlier dismissal motion as "terse, bland, and conclusory." Garaufis demanded a fuller explanation. McCotter gave one.
The prosecution, brought under the Biden administration in 2024, alleged Adani and others paid roughly $250 million in bribes to Indian officials and misled U.S. investors about the scheme. Adani Green Energy raised at least $175 million from U.S. investors during the period in question. McCotter argued the case should never have been brought for several reasons.
The alleged conduct occurred almost entirely in India. Indian authorities investigated the same allegations and found no actionable misconduct. Investors did not suffer losses. Key evidence and witnesses were outside U.S. jurisdiction. The defendants were unlikely to ever appear before a U.S. court. "The decision to seek dismissal was not a close call," McCotter wrote.
The securities fraud charges, he argued, rested on a weak legal theory for applying U.S. law to foreign conduct. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges no longer fit the Trump administration's enforcement policy, which prioritizes cases affecting U.S. national security, American companies, or transnational criminal organizations. "The FCPA charges should have been dismissed a year ago," he wrote.
The New York Times reported in May that Adani's legal team, led by Robert J. Giuffra Jr., a Trump personal lawyer and co-chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell, made a 100-slide presentation at the DOJ in April. One slide reportedly offered the $10 billion investment and 15,000 jobs if prosecutors dropped the case. McCotter's filing calls the premise of that story false. Federal prosecutors, he said, do not trade case outcomes for economic commitments.
For Adani Green Energy, the entity at the center of the U.S. investor allegations, the dismissal removes the single largest legal overhang. The indictment had pushed up the group's borrowing costs and complicated international capital raising. Adani Group dollar bonds and Indian-listed shares had traded under pressure since the charges were filed. A relief rally in both markets would price out the legal risk now cleared.
The counterargument comes in two parts. First, the allegations remain in the public record. The DOJ indictment detailed specific conduct, and McCotter's filing did not claim the facts were wrong – it argued the case did not belong in a U.S. court under current enforcement policy. Second, class-action lawsuits from U.S. investors alleging securities fraud are still possible. A dismissal with prejudice by the DOJ weakens the foundation of any private suit, since the government's own legal theory was that no U.S. investor suffered losses and the conduct was outside U.S. jurisdiction. Private plaintiffs can still file. The government's dismissal weakens their legal foundation.
The investment pledge, reported by the New York Times, may draw scrutiny from lawmakers or ethics watchdogs. It carries no legal force. The DOJ's explicit denial that the offer influenced the decision undercuts any argument of a quid pro quo.
Adani Group companies, including Adani Enterprises and Adani Ports, face a lower cost of capital with the U.S. legal risk removed. The Bombay Stock Exchange-listed Adani Green Energy should see the most direct benefit, given it was the entity named in the indictment. The group's ability to raise international capital, which had been constrained since the Hindenburg report in 2023, gets a second clearance after the U.S. charges.
McCotter's filing urged the court to promptly grant the dismissal. Continued judicial scrutiny, he argued, would improperly intrude on the executive branch's exclusive authority over prosecutorial decisions and leave defendants "in limbo on charges that should have been dropped a year ago, or never brought in the first place."
Prepared with AlphaScala research tooling and grounded in primary market data: live prices, fundamentals, SEC filings, hedge-fund holdings, and insider activity. Each story is checked against AlphaScala publishing rules before release. Educational coverage, not personalized advice.