An arrest warrant has been issued for Gautam Adani, the billionaire Chair of the Adani Group, on charges of fraud and bribery relating to the ‘Adani Green Energy’ arm of the multinational conglomerate. The move has prompted calls from critics of the Science Museum’s controversial Adani sponsorship deal that it should now spell the end of the agreement and the removal of the company’s name from the museum.

Gautam Adani, as well as his nephew Sagar Adani who is an Executive Director at Adani Green Energy, have been indicted by a US court on charges arising from an alleged $265 million bribery scheme. The allegations of bribery and fraud were first reported last Wednesday and relate to contracts to develop the firm’s solar power projects.

The Science Museum had already identified numerous instances of fraud and financial mismanagement relating to Adani when it compiled an initial due diligence report on the company in December 2020, alongside extensive concerns about Adani’s environmental and human rights impacts. However, the indictment by US prosecutors represents a significant escalation as it centres upon the Adani branch named as the sponsor of the museum’s climate gallery and also compels international law enforcement to arrest the Adani Group Chairman and others.

The allegations directly conflict with the Science Museum Group’s (SMG) own ‘Group Ethics Policy’, which sets out its approach to fundraising and sponsorship, stating that:

“SMG will not accept donations, sponsorship or grants where the donor has acted, or believed to have acted, illegally in the acquisition of funds or where there are concerns of fraud, money laundering or other financial crime.” 

A spokesperson for Culture Unstained, an organisation that campaigns to end fossil fuel sponsorship of the Science Museum, has said:

“An arrest warrant for billionaire Gautam Adani on allegations of bribery and fraud should be the final straw for the Science Museum, when its ‘Adani Green Energy Gallery’ only serves to launder their sponsor’s toxic reputation. Since 2020, the Museum has backed Adani and dismissed all evidence of its human rights violations, complicity in genocide, environmental damage and financial crime. 

The Science Museum’s own ethics policy prohibits donations where there are “concerns of fraud” or money comes from donors who are “believed to have acted illegally”. Will it continue to defend a company whose Chair and other senior executives have now been indicted by US prosecutors? Or will it finally admit the mistake it has made and drop this indefensible, polluting sponsor?

The Science Museum’s ‘Energy Revolution: the Adani Green Energy Gallery’ opened in March this year amidst protest against Adani’s large-scale involvement in coal mining and coal power. The US bribery charges reported yesterday relate to activity from 2020 to 2024, the period in which the Science Museum was also engaging with Adani on a potential sponsorship deal. The sponsorship contract was signed by Gautam Adani himself in 2021, who also attended the opening ceremony for the ‘Energy Revolution’ gallery earlier this year. 

Mukti Shah, a member of South Asia Solidarity Group, has said:

“Adani has been exposed once again as a fraudulent criminal despite the ongoing efforts by India’s Hindu-supremacist regime to shield him. Behind this story is the bigger one of Adani as one of the world’s biggest environmental criminals, of Adani as a destroyer of indigenous people’s lands and lives in India and Australia, of Adani as a genocide enabler in Palestine. The Science Museum must drop this fraudulent and murderous sponsor of its Green Energy gallery, or be complicit in these crimes.”

Freedom of Information (FOI) disclosures made to Culture Unstained revealed that in pursuing the deal, Museum Director Ian Blatchford had pitched the sponsorship to Adani as a “global profiling opportunity”, a clear indication that such sponsorship deals are transactional in nature, and intended to enhance the sponsor’s reputation and benefit it financially. The subsequent promotion of the sponsorship by Adani, including coverage of the gallery opening on the front cover of an Indian national, projected a positive public image for the firm over the period in which the alleged bribery scheme took place. 

The museum initially sought sponsorship from the Adani Group, although it was subsequently branded as a deal solely with ‘Adani Green Energy’, in an apparent attempt to distance the museum from Adani’s coal business. However, the Hindenburg Group has highlighted how all of the Adani Group companies are “intricately linked”, thereby associating the museum with the Adani Group’s environmental and human rights impacts as the world’s biggest private producer of coal. Adani also produces Hermes 900 drones which have been supplied to Israel in a joint venture with Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems.

Lotika Singha, member of International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India, has said:

“The Science Museum’s decisions about sponsorship cannot be uncoupled from the ethics of public knowledge production and dissemination. The partnership with the Adani Group is a textbook case of corporate interests taking precedence over social and climate justice. The tenacity of the Science Museum to stand by its corrupt sponsors will leave a stain on the history of the role of such museums in public education.”

Despite the litany of concerns identified in the museum’s initial due diligence report on Adani, Science Museum Director Ian Blatchford forged ahead with the partnership. The sponsorship was then approved despite significant opposition, including the resignation of two of the Museum trustees, Dr Hannah Fry and Dr Jo Foster.

After the sponsorship was signed, the Museum’s Director, Board of Trustees and internal “partnerships panel” have continued to disregard further evidence of financial wrongdoing by Adani. In January 2023, US-based forensic financial research company, Hindenburg Research, published evidence of a “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades” by the Adani Group. FOI disclosures revealed that, following the report, Ian Blatchford merely said in an email to Adani that, “I hope you are well. I am sure the past few weeks have been rather torrid.”