Adani Group: Allegations by OCCRP Mischievous, Misleading
- Timing and content of the news reports is mischievous and malicious, aimed at generating profits by driving down Adani Group stocks
- We remain confident in the quality of disclosures and corporate governance standards: Adani Group.
AHMEDABAD, India–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#AdaniGroup–The Adani Group, India’s leading integrated business conglomerate, issued a media statement today in response to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) Report that alleged the Adani Group violated certain laws.
Adani Group vehemently denied the report. The present report is the second instance of an international organization to make meritless allegations against the conglomerate. Earlier, Hindenburg Research, a New York-based short-seller, had issued a report making similar allegations. To that, the Adani Group provided an elaborate response strongly denying its claims. Further updates on this can be accessed on the Adani Updates resource center.
Subsequently, the Supreme Court of India constituted a committee, which submitted its report and made no conclusive finding of any wrongdoing by the Adani Group. The matter is currently subjudice and is being overseen by India’s apex court and the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
Adani Group issued the following statement in response to the OCCRP Report:
“We categorically reject these recycled allegations. These news reports appear to be yet another concerted bid by funded interests supported by a section of the foreign media to revive the meritless Hindenburg report. In fact, this was anticipated, as was reported by the media last week.
These claims are based on closed cases from a decade ago when the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) probed allegations of over invoicing, transfer of funds abroad, related party transactions and investments through FPIs. An independent adjudicating authority and an appellate tribunal had both confirmed that there was no over-valuation and that the transactions were in accordance with applicable law. The matter attained finality in March 2023 when the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India ruled in our favour. Clearly, since there was no over-valuation, there is no relevance or foundation for these allegations on transfer of funds.
Notably, these FPIs are already part of the investigation by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). As per the Expert Committee appointed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, there is no evidence of any breach of the Minimum Public Shareholding (MPS) requirements or manipulation of stock prices.
It is unfortunate that these publications, which sent us queries, chose not to carry our response in full. These attempts are aimed at, inter alia, generating profits by driving down our stock prices and these short sellers are under investigation by various authorities. As the Hon’ble Supreme Court and SEBI are overseeing these matters, it is vital to respect the ongoing regulatory process.
We have complete faith in the due process of law and remain confident of the quality of our disclosures and corporate governance standards. In light of these facts, the timing of these news reports is suspicious, mischievous and malicious – and we reject these reports in their entirety.”
Contacts
For media queries, please contact: Roy Paul, roy.paul@adani.com
