Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and Vineet Jaain were charged with conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. The indictment also charges Ranjit Gupta and Rupesh Agarwal, former executives of a New York Stock Exchange-listed renewable energy company, along with Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal and Deepak Malhotra — former employees of a Canadian investment firm – that they conspired to violate anti-bribery laws. It was alleged that the bribery scheme was linked to one of the world’s largest solar power projects.

At the center of the allegations are US laws called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA). According to the indictment,

“The FCPA was enacted by Congress to, among other things, make it illegal for certain categories of persons and entities to act corruptly in order to obtain an offer, promise, authorization or payment of money or anything else of value, directly or indirectly , to a foreign official for the purpose of obtaining or maintaining business for, or directing business to, any person.”