Former Caisse employees named in alleged Adani bribery scheme

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Three former employees of the Caisse de dépôt et Placement du Quebec are facing charges as part of a sweeping indictment by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York that accuses Gautam Adani, chair of the Adani Group and one of the world’s richest men, of a massive bribery scheme involving Indian officials and billions of dollars in solar energy contracts.

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The three former Caisse de dépôt employees — Cyril Cabanes, 50, Saurabh Agarwal, 48, and Deepak Malhotra, 45 — are accused of obstructing a grand jury, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and the U.S. Securities Commission, in investigations of the alleged bribery scheme.

According to an indictment unsealed Wednesday, the former employees of the Canadian institutional investor are charged, along with a fourth man, of agreeing “to delete electronic materials related to the bribery scheme, including emails, electronic messages and bribery analyses.”

They are also alleged to have caused the board of directors of a U.S. company to initiate an internal investigation into the bribery scheme “and then withheld material information from that investigation.”

The former Caisse employees are charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. None of the allegations have been tested in court.

They are also alleged to have falsely denied their participation in the bribery scheme to representatives of the FBI, DOJ and SEC at meetings in Brooklyn, New York, leading to a charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice.

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According to a January 5 report in Infrastructure Investor, all three left the Caisse in 2023. Cabanes had been a long-serving managing director of the Asia Pacific region, according to the report, while Malhotra was a director of infrastructure for South Asia. Agarwal had been managing director of CDPQ India, the publication said.

A news release issued Wednesday by the U.S. SEC said Cabanes was also an executive of Azure Power Global Ltd., one of two companies that were part of the massive scheme alleged by U.S. authorities. The India-based renewable energy company traded on the New York Stock Exchange until it was delisted late last year. The other company named by authorities is Adani Green Energy Ltd., which the SEC says raised $175 million from U.S. investors while the alleged bribery scheme was in progress.

In one scheme alleged by the SEC, Cabanes, a former member of Azure Power’s board of directors, was charged with violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. According to the SEC’s complaint, Cabanes is alleged to have “facilitated the authorization of bribes in furtherance of the scheme while in the United States and abroad.”

Last year, the New York Stock Exchange took steps in July to delist the shares Azure Power Global Ltd., with Azure unable to file required regulatory documents. The renewable energy company attempted to have the decision to delist the shares reversed and file some of the missing paperwork, but the shares were set to be delisted from the exchange on Nov. 13, 2023, according to a news release.

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