The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Una Galani

HONG KONG, May 15 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The Indian billionaire settled an SEC fraud case and may do so for other US charges. It'll ease major regulatory, if not political, concerns about his too-big-to-fail $150 bln infrastructure empire. And the bruised but battle-hardened group is better placed to handle new crises.

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CONTEXT NEWS

Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar agreed to pay a total of $18 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that they made false or misleading statements in offering materials in connection with a $750 million Adani Green bond offering, court filings dated May 14 showed.

The Justice Department is also moving to drop fraud charges against Adani in a parallel criminal case, Bloomberg reported earlier on the same day.

The proposed SEC settlement, in which neither defendant admits to or denies the allegations, requires the approval of a district court. The original SEC complaint was filed in November 2024.

Adani's lawyer, Robert Giuffra, who is also a personal attorney of U.S. President Donald Trump, told Justice Department officials in a presentation last month that the group could not make a pledged $10 billion investment in the U.S. economy while the case was proceeding, Reuters reported citing an unnamed source.

In November 2024, federal prosecutors charged Adani and six other executives over an alleged scheme to pay over $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials so his company could win approval to develop India's largest solar power plant.

Separately, the Adani group is in talks to pay potentially $265 million to settle an investigation by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control involving shipping Iranian gas, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the matter.