In a big relief for Gautam Adani, the US Justice Department is moving to drop criminal fraud charges against the Indian billionaire who has promised to invest $10 billion in the US economy, court records showed on Monday, according to Reuters. This comes after Adani’s lawyer, Robert Giuffra, told Justice Department officials in a presentation last month that Adani could not make its investment while the case was proceeding.
Adanis Conclude OFAC Sanctions Case With $275 Million Settlement
Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL) has also agreed to pay $275 million to settle potential civil liability tied to alleged violations of US sanctions on Iran, the US Department of Treasury said on Monday. According to the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the company imported liquefied petroleum gas shipments that were presented as originating from Oman and Iraq, but were in fact sourced from Iran through a Dubai-based trader.
US Treasury determined the following to be mitigating factors:
AEL has not received a penalty notice or Finding of Violation from OFAC in the five years preceding the earliest date of the transactions giving rise to the Apparent Violations.
At the time of the shipments, AEL’s nascent LPG business was a small percentage of AEL’s overall revenue, representing less than 1.5% of AEL’s consolidated revenue for 2025.
AEL provided substantial cooperation to OFAC, including by conducting a thorough, independent internal investigation on an expedited basis and at substantial cost, responding promptly to OFAC’s requests for information, and providing large volumes of data regarding the Apparent Violations.
AEL has implemented significant remedial measures to respond to the Apparent Violations, including ceasing imports of LPG into India, enhancing its sanctions compliance policy and controls, and implementing certain compliance commitments.
AEL has already begun implementing some of these commitments, including the following:
Creating and adopting a robust risk-based U.S. sanctions compliance policy and written due diligence protocol overseen by a dedicated Group Head of Compliance
Applying the enhanced sanctions compliance policy across AEL, in order to foster consistency, comprehensiveness, and uniformity in how sanctions-related diligence is conducted across its business units
Incorporating into its sanctions risk assessment consideration of risks relating to maritime transport of hydrocarbons, including risks identified in OFAC’s published guidance
Deploying information technology solutions for maritime intelligence specifically designed to mitigate risks in the marine transportation sector.
(With agency inputs)
