Mauritian Financial Watchdog Gives Clean Chit To Entities Associated To Adani In The Country

Even since the publication of Hindenburg Research’s report on 24 January 2023, the listed Adani Group companies have lost over $120 billion in market value despite the conglomerate vehemently denying these allegations.

New Delhi: The Financial Services Commission, the regulatory authority responsible for the regulation, supervision and inspection of all financial services other than banking institutions and global business in Mauritius, has reportedly said that in its preliminary investigation, it has not found any breach of law by the 38 global companies and 11 funds being associated with the Adani Group.

“We have carried out our initial assessment of all the entities related to that (Adani) group in Mauritius and, up to now, based on the information submitted, we have not found any non-compliance with our rules,” Financial Services Commission (FSC) Chief Executive Dhanesswurnath Vikash Thakoor told Business Standard.

Even since the publication of Hindenburg Research’s report on 24 January 2023, the listed Adani Group companies have lost over $120 billion in market value despite the conglomerate vehemently denying these allegations. The Supreme Court of India has asked Sebi and the government to give their responses regarding investor protection on Monday, 13 February 2023.

“Though the FSC is collaborating with Sebi and regularly exchanging information, the preliminary report has not yet been shared with the Indian regulator … This is our internal report. Sebi requests specific information from time to time, for which we need to go on site and submit the report. That’s a separate channel which continues,” the FSC chief told in the interview.

He added that whenever there are media reports,  certain investigations are triggered, and the regulator requests management companies to submit compliance reports.

“Based on the submissions we have got so far with respect to what they are supposed to do, we have not found any breach of law, notwithstanding the fact that a number of these entities were also subjected to our routine onsite inspection according to our cycle. There has not been any breach of the anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism law,” Thakoor said.

While speaking to Business Standard about the lack of automatic disclosure of information in this case, the FSI chief told that “Automatic disclosures can’t be done simply because you won’t like your account information being published if you have one in Mauritius. The allegations, the way they have been made, don’t give us material to go straightaway (into investigation). Otherwise, it would be a fishing expedition and you have to go after all of them.”