Adani’s Escape: Justice for Sale in Trump’s America -By Fransiscus Nanga Roka

In November 2024, India’s richest man Gautam Adani was charged in Brooklyn with running a $250 million bribery scheme to obtain contracts for solar projects in India and lying to US investors about it. Eighteen months down the line, the case is stone cold flat, the SEC has settled for small change and only a single federal judge and two US senators are asking difficult questions. This is not a victory for due process In a word, it is the commercialization of American justice.

Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani, Adani Green Energy CEO Vneet Jaain, the SEC, and Justice Department under Trump and even Trump’s own personal attorney Robert Giuffra hired by Adani to oversee his defense. The SEC consented to the Adanis and approx $18million in combined fines being below the order ¥6 million, v Sagar Adani Approx ¥12 million without admitting any wrongdoing with regard to misleading investors over a 2021 bond offering At the same time, the DOJ sought to throw out any and all charges of criminal bribery and conspiracy.

The SEC settlement was filed May 14, 2026, the DOJ’s dismissal request was made in days and a Treasury settlement over separate Iran sanctions violations was reached May 18. Where is this playing out? In the Eastern District of New York, before Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who has refused to rubber-stamp the DOJ’s retreat. Because Adani dangled a $10 billion investment promise into the US economy as leverage during the negotiations an offer Adani now claims played no role in the decision. Adani’s legal team submitted nearly 500 pages of arguments, reportedly including input from a former Chief Justice of India, arguing that the alleged bribery took place outside US jurisdiction.

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis referred to the government’s rationale as “terse, bland and conclusory,” and issued prosecutors a deadline: defend yourselvesof, ten an expression of judicial disapproval seldom directed at the DOJ itself; Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal are investigating what appears to be an obvious quid pro quo: clear the charges, and a foreign billionaire pours billions into the US economy during an administration that already suspended Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement in February 2025 for “national security” reasons. In parallel, Adani Enterprises also made a $275 million settlement payment to the Treasury to resolve 32 apparent violations of Iran sanctions related to LPG imports via Mundra Port, again with no finding of fault. To recap: a quarter billion dollar bribery scheme ends with the man who orchestrated it not only walking away after total settlements costing less than many mid-tier corporate fines, but with zero criminal liability.

This is how wealth currently buys freedom from responsibility in Washington: Go to the president’s lawyer, commit money to the American economy and watch as federal prosecutors drop a case they have built through years of work. I know, this is a bit of an extreme case because if the pattern persists, the FCPA isn’t law anymore, it’s just a bargaining tool that will only be offered up by billionaires able to buy political goodwill.

Call For Congress: A floor on enforcement of the FCPA must be legislated statutorily and unwaivably to prevent an administration from declining cases based on undisclosed promises regarding investments. Judge Garaufis should then order the release of every communication between Adani’s counsel with any DOJ official, and that record be made public. The SEC’s revolving-door settlement model – bumbling “threats” where fines equal rounding errors by comparison to alleged wrongful gain – should incorporate mandatory penalty floors proportional to the scale of any purported fraud, not political expediency. Indian regulators (SEBI) must, on their own, return to analyze the merits of underlying bond disclosures since American leniency doesn’t undo the damage done by these investors. International corruption authorities should flag this case up as a precedent-setting indication that US enforcement is for sale, to prevent other billionaires from copying the same playbook.

Fransiscus Nanga Roka

Faculty of Law University 17 August 1945 Surabaya and Managing Partner Law Firm Victorious Indonesia