San Francisco (California) [US], July 6 : The US Department of Justice (DoJ) strongly defended its decision to drop the high-profile charges of the alleged criminal bribery case against Gautam Adani, citing evidentiary weakness, jurisdictional overreach, and constitutional limits on judicial power.
US legal expert Adam Goldberg, Partner Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman said that the US DoJ in its reply had detailed that the case falls outside the very clearly delineated priorities of this administration.
"The most significant is likely the fact that the case falls outside the very clearly delineated priorities of this administration. So there was no, for example, national security basis. There was no tie to transnational criminal organizations. In pausing anti-corruption enforcement, FCPA enforcement specifically, the Department of Justice, under the Trump administration has been very clear that they were resetting the priorities, which is not to say that they were stopping enforcement, but that they were looking in different places. This case falls outside of that fact. I think that piece of it, as well as the fact that no US investors were injured because as has been widely discussed, you know, people made money, nobody lost money. Had significant US investors lost money, uh, then I think there would have been a different discussion potentially. But because there was no harm to US investors and there was no national security tie, and on top of that, as the DOJ noted, Indian authorities investigated and didn't seem to find anything, those were all very significant bases," Adam Goldberg said.
The US DoJ in its reply had argued that the case was weak due to evidentiary problems. It further said that most of the alleged evidence was based in India making US prosecution difficult. In its reply, the DoJ also said that forcing prosecutors to spell out their reasoning in detail could undermine constitutional authority over prosecutorial decisions. Prosecutors say the alleged case took place in India and it was not appropriate for US prosecutors to get into it. This, experts believe leaves the court with very little room but to agree with the DoJ.
"It would be very unusual if the court did something other than close the case quickly. It is very unusual in the United States for the courts to tell the Department of Justice that they cannot stop a prosecution that they do not wish to prosecute...The judicial branch, which is the courts, has the authority under the rules of criminal procedure applicable to this case, they have to approve the dismissal, but they do not have the authority to second-guess the executive branch and tell the executive branch how to prosecute cases. It is not so uncommon for a judge to ask the Department of Justice for more information. They tend to want to pursue that approval requirement under Rule 48 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to make sure that a dismissal is in good faith. But the Department of Justice response here was very detailed. They laid out in a lot of detail, a number of bases why they no longer wish to prosecute, from the difficulties of pursuing the case, the jurisdictional bases, the fact that Indian authorities had already investigated this and hadn't seemed to- to find any misconduct, and the fact that no US investors had been harmed. So given the amount of detail that the Department of Justice provided here, it would be even more unusual for the court to somehow say, No, I am not going to approve this," Goldberg said.
The case against Gautam Adani and others had alleged a bribery scheme linked to solar power contracts in India which further allegedly misled US investors. In May this year the US DoJ had moved to dismiss these charges following which the US Court of the Eastern District of New York has sought a reply from the DoJ. With that reply cementing the US DoJ's position, legal experts argue that teh the Judge in all likelihood would back the DoJ stand.