Kenya cuts ties with Adani, cancels deals over US indictement

The US Department of Justice has issued a criminal indictment of Gautam Adani charging them for duping investors from the USA by "giving false and misleading statements" and bribing Indian officials to win energy deals.

Kenyan President William Ruto, on Thursday, November 21, announced that he had ordered the cancellation of multiple deals with the Adani Group, following Gautam Adani’s indictment in the US.

The President said that a procurement process that was expected to hand over the control of the African nation’s main airport to the Indian conglomerate Adani Group, has been cancelled, following the company’s chairperson Gautam Adani and other top stakeholders being indicted by the US department of justice under charges of corruption.

The country is also cancelling the controversial 30-year deal, for a USD 736 million public-private partnership, signed with a unit of the Adani Group last month to construct power transmission lines. This deal was earlier struck down by a Kenyan High Court, following petitions from the Kenyan Law Society, citing a lack of public consultation and transparency.

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“I have directed agencies within the ministry of transport and the ministry of energy and petroleum to immediately cancel the ongoing procurement,” President Ruto said in his State of the Nation address, attributing the decision to “new information provided by investigative agencies and partner nations.”

US ‘finds’ Adani’s bribery in India

On November 20, the US department of justice issued a criminal indictment of Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani, and six other top executives of the Adani Group, charging them for duping investors from the USA and other financial institutions. The group allegedly gave “false and misleading statements” over renewable energy projects in various Indian states, to raise investments.

The indictments say that the Adani group, between 2020 and 2024, used these investments to promise more than Rs 2000 crore (USD 250 million) in bribes to Indian government officials, without the knowledge of the investors.

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The bribes were allegedly made to secure solar energy contracts and other renewable energy distribution and sale contracts with five Indian states – Odisha, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.

The criminal indictment can result in a “permanent injunction, a civil penalty, and an officer and director bar”.

While the Adani Group has denied any wrongdoings, and refuted the indictment as ‘allegations’, the indictment has led to the Adani Group losing about Rs 2,36,500 crores in share market value in a single morning.