Adani Group
India’s Adani is one of the world’s most controversial coal conglomerates. According to GCEL 2026, it is the world’s second largest developer of coal power, and through its Australian Carmichael mine, one of the world’s top coal mining expansionists. Adani has also repeatedly made headlines for human rights violations, environmental breaches and questionable business practices.
In January 2023, the short-seller Hindenburg Research published a 106-page report accusing the Adani Group of using “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud” in order to artificially inflate its stock price. In March 2024, the Attorney’s Office expanded its investigation to include allegations that Adani may have bribed government officials to secure favorable terms for its energy projects. In November, Gautam Adani and seven other executives were charged with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit security fraud in the USA. In August 2026, a federal judge dismissed the fraud case against Adani, whose legal team included Trump’s personal lawyers. It has since been revealed that Adani offered a $10 billion investment in the US in order to resolve the criminal case. This is only the most recent news in a list of scandals Adani is embroiled in.
Since 2022, nearly all major U.S. banks appear to have withdrawn their financial backing from Adani, hinting at serious issues with the company. Until 2024, there was one notable exception which had remained unfazed by Adani’s appalling environmental and human rights records: Jefferies. However, Jefferies also stopped financing Adani in 2025. Overall, Adani’s bank financing collapsed to just $175 million in 2025, down from $2,526 million in 2024 and $1,728 million in 2022.
There has been a long history of grassroots resistance against Adani. In 2024, Alok Shukla won the Goldman Environmental Prize for successfully mobilizing a community campaign against Adani’s destruction of the Hasdeo Aranya forest. Hasdeo Aranya is one of the largest intact forests in India, home to endangered Asian elephants, leopards, tigers and 92 bird species. Nearly 15,000 Indigenous Adivasi people depend on the forest. Adani planned on building five coal mines in this nature paradise. Although local resistance forced local authorities to cancel this project, the government recently overruled this decision and allowed destruction to proceed.
