Efforts to serve complaint on Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani ongoing: SEC tells court

The US Securities and Exchange Commission SEC has told a federal judge here that its efforts to serve its complaint on Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani in the alleged bribery scheme are ongoing including through a request for assistance to the Indian authorities reported news agency PTIThe SEC submitted a status update Tuesday to Judge Nicholas Garaufis at the United States District Court Eastern District of New York regarding its efforts to serve its complaint on Gautam Adani and Sagar AdaniThe SEC said that both Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani are located in India and the SECs efforts to serve them there are ongoing including through a request for assistance to the Indian authorities to effect service under the Hague Service Convention for Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters reported PTIThe SEC said that its complaint dated November 20 last year alleges that Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani violated the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws by knowingly or recklessly making false and misleading representations concerning Adani Green Energy Ltd in connection with a September 2021 debt offering by Adani GreenIt said that because the defendants are located in a foreign country Rule 4f of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure FRCP governs service of the Summons and ComplaintFRCP 4f contains no set time limit for service and the SEC may serve Defendants by any internationally agreed means of service that is reasonably calculated to give notice such as the Hague Service ConventionThe SEC update submitted by its Counsel Christopher Colorado cited a case that notes that service via the Hague Service Convention is one permissible means of serving defendants located in India reported PTISince the filing of its Complaint SEC staff has been working to serve Defendants in accordance with FRCP 4f SEC staff has contacted Defendants or their counsel to the extent SEC staff is aware of such counsel and has sent them Notices of Lawsuit and Requests for Waiver of Service of Summons including copies of the Complaint reported PTIAdditionally under Article 5a of the Hague Service Convention the SEC has requested assistance from Indias Ministry of Law and Justice the Central Authority for India under the Hague Service ConventionThat process is ongoing and the SEC will continue its efforts to serve Defendants in India by the methods prescribed by FRCP 4f including under the Hague Service Convention and will keep the Court apprised of its progress the SEC said reported PTIIn November last year the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Gautam Adani Sagar Adani and Cyril Cabanes an executive of Azure Power Global Ltd for conduct arising out of a massive bribery schemeIn a parallel action the US Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of New York unsealed criminal charges against Gautam and Sagar Adani and Cabanes among other individuals connected to Adani Green and Azure PowerAdani is being indicted by the US Department of Justice for his role in an alleged yearslong scheme to pay USD 250 million bribes to Indian officials in exchange for favourable solar power contractsThe Adani group has said that the allegations by the Department of Justice and the SEC are baseless and has denied them reported PTIThe allegations made by the US Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission against directors of Adani Green are baseless and denied a spokesperson for the Adani Group had said in a statement reported PTIThe spokesperson pointed to a US Department of Justice statement that said The charges in the indictment are allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty reported PTIThe group has said that all possible legal recourse will be soughtThe Adani Group has always upheld and is steadfastly committed to maintaining the highest standards of governance transparency and regulatory compliance across all jurisdictions of its operations We assure our stakeholders partners and employees that we are a lawabiding organisation fully compliant with all laws the spokesperson addedWith inputs from PTI