Indian group blasts ‘baseless’ allegations by US short seller
The Adani Group, one of India’s largest conglomerates, has rejected allegations by US-based short seller Hindenburg Research that Switzerland has frozen the group’s funds as part of a money-laundering investigation. Adani branded the allegations as “baseless,” stating that it is not involved in any Swiss court proceedings.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, the US firm said that Swiss authorities had frozen assets worth $310 million across Adani’s accounts as part of a “money laundering and securities forgery probe” into the group, dating back as early as 2021.
Hindenburg cited an article by Swiss media outlet Gotham City, which reported that the Geneva Public Prosecutor’s Office had opened criminal proceedings against the alleged frontman of Adani Group in December 2021 on suspicion of money laundering, long before Hindenburg made its own allegations. The Office of the Swiss Attorney General, responsible for investigating and prosecuting offenses that fall under federal jurisdiction, took over the probe after the case was revealed in the press.
“The Adani Group has no involvement in any Swiss court proceedings, nor have any of our company accounts been subject to sequestration by any authority,” the Indian company said in a statement on Thursday. The Swiss court neither mentioned the group’s companies, nor has the conglomerate received any requests for “clarification or information from any such authority or regulatory body,” the statement noted.
The Adani Group has slammed the allegations as “clearly preposterous, irrational, and absurd,” and claimed it was an “orchestrated” attempt to “inflict irreversible damage on our group’s reputation and market value.”
The fresh allegations come amid a major controversy that erupted in January 2023, when Hindenburg published a report claiming that Adani had engaged in stock market manipulation. The report triggered a plunge in the value of the group’s companies, to the extent of $145 billion at the lowest point.
A few months later, the investigative journalism platform Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project accused the Adani family of “secretly investing hundreds of millions of dollars into the Indian stock market, [and] buying its own shares,” causing the stocks to fall further. The Adani Group has denied all the allegations.
In August, Hindenburg released another report, claiming that the chairperson of the stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Madhabi Puri Buch, and her husband, Dhaval Buch, were involved in trading Adani stocks, thus preventing a proper investigation into supposed financial irregularities that Hindenburg claimed to have uncovered.
On Friday, the SEBI chief stated that the allegations against her were completely false, and that she had complied with all disclosure and recusal guidelines issued by the regulator.
