New Delhi: Billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani on Wednesday (July 15) admitted for the first time – in a sworn affidavit submitted to a US court – that his lawyers had suggested to US prosecutors that the Adani Group’s publicly announced plan to invest $10 billion in the United States “might be part of a resolution” of the criminal and civil cases against him “if that was what the DOJ or the SEC wanted.”Adani’s affidavit also makes it clear that this purported quid pro quo was formally rejected by the prosecutors, though they went ahead and agreed to drop the case citing separate grounds.The affidavit, filed on Tuesday before the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, marks the first time Adani himself has acknowledged under oath that the proposed investment was raised by his legal team during negotiations with the Department of Justice (DOJ).“During these settlement discussions, I understand that my counsel suggested that my publicly stated intent to invest $10 billion in the United States might be part of a resolution of these matters if that was what the DOJ or SEC wanted,” he submitted.Adani stated that he understood that the Justice Department later told his lawyers it “would not consider this potential investment in deciding whether to seek dismissal of the criminal case” and that, to his knowledge, the proposed investment “had no role” in the department’s decision to seek dismissal.In the affidavit, Adani said the proposal arose from a social media post he had made on X on November 13, 2024, in which he announced that the Adani Group was committed to investing $10 billion in US energy security and resilient infrastructure projects, with the potential to create up to 15,000 jobs.He told the court that the indictment and the SEC complaint had not yet been unsealed at the time and that he was unaware of their existence when he made the announcement.Adani’s affidavit does not address whether he was aware of the underlying investigation before the indictment was unsealed. The DOJ indictment stated that on March 17, 2023, FBI agents approached his nephew and co-defendant, Sagar Adani, with a search warrant, seized his electronic devices and served him with a warrant identifying “offences, individuals and entities under investigation by the United States government”.Also read: US DOJ Defends Dropping Adani Case With Indian Orders That Never Examined Bribery AllegationsThe signed affidavit by Adani came in response to an order by Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who last week directed Adani to file a sworn affidavit after saying the Justice Department’s explanation for dropping the prosecution had raised the “spectre” of a possible undisclosed agreement.The judge asked Adani whether he was aware of anything “promised, offered, sought, received, agreed to, or accepted” in connection with the government’s move to dismiss the November 2024 indictment, or of “any agreement exchanging anything for the dismissal of the Indictment.”Adani answered both questions in the negative. He said he was not aware of anything promised or agreed in exchange for dismissal of the indictment apart from discussions between his lawyers and the Justice Department relating to settlements in the parallel Securities and Exchange Commission case and a separate Office of Foreign Assets Control investigation. He also said he was not aware of any agreement exchanging anything for dismissal of the indictment.In his accompanying declaration, submitted “to provide additional context” about the firm’s representation of Adani, Giuffra explained that the $10 billion investment was raised with the DOJ as what he called a standard “collateral consequences” argument.He pointed to the Justice Department’s own Justice Manual, which lists “disproportionate harm to shareholders, pension holders, employees and others not proven personally culpable” among the factors prosecutors weigh in resolving a case.The investment offer, Giuffra added, was meant to “underscore that a collateral consequence of the pendency of these charges was the adverse impact on the Group’s ability to invest in the United States and on the US-India trade relationship”.Giuffra also disclosed that on May 11, US Attorney Joseph Nocella emailed the defence stating that any proposal to resolve the criminal charges “by, in part, a general proposal to invest $10 billion in the United States is categorically rejected” and “will not be considered by this Office.” According to the declaration, the defence did not raise the investment proposal again after receiving that email and it “was not incorporated in any way into, or made a condition of,” the resolutions later reached with the Justice Department, the SEC and OFAC.Judge Garaufis sought the affidavits after the Justice department’s July 4 filing acknowledged that Adani’s proposed US investments had been discussed while denying media reports that they influenced the decision to abandon the prosecution. The judge has yet to rule on the department’s request to dismiss the indictment.In his declaration, Giuffra also elaborated for the first time on the substance of an opinion prepared by a former chief justice of India, one of four experts whose reports the defence submitted to the DOJ. He wrote that the former chief justice “opined on the robust anti-corruption and transparency regime in India” and “explained how Indian authorities are well equipped to investigate and address allegations of bribery in India”.Earlier filings from the defence, including a June 24 letter to Judge Garaufis, had referred simply to “a former Chief Justice of India” among the submitted experts.The Wire had reported in June that it had contacted 20 living former chief justices to get their response on whether they had filed any statement for Adani. Till now, seven former chief justices, including B.R. Gavai, Sanjiv Khanna, R.M. Lodha, G.B. Pattanaik, T.S. Thakur, N.V. Ramana and P Sathasivam, had denied preparing any such opinion.This story has been updated with more details.