The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Monday announced a $275 million settlement with Adani Enterprises Limited over what it described as “apparent violations of OFAC sanctions on Iran.”
The US sanctions watchdog said Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of Gautam Adani’s conglomerate, agreed to settle its potential civil liability for 32 apparent violations involving purchases of Iranian-origin liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
According to the US agency, from November 2023 to June 2025, Adani Enterprises purchased LPG from a Dubai-based trader that purported to supply gas from Oman and Iraq, but “red flags should have put AEL on notice that the LPG actually originated from Iran.”
OFAC said Adani went on to purchase 35 cargoes of Iranian-origin LPG from the supplier or its affiliates. However, only 32 shipments involved US-dollar payments totaling about $192.1 million routed through American banks. The remaining three shipments were either never paid for or were settled entirely in UAE dirhams.
The agency said the case was considered “egregious” and that the violations were not voluntarily self-disclosed.
Under US sanctions guidelines, this resulted in a base civil penalty of $384.2 million. The final settlement amount reflected what OFAC said were Adani’s “remedial measures following discovery of the conduct and the cooperation AEL provided for OFAC’s investigation.”
OFAC said Adani “acted recklessly and had reason to know of the Apparent Violations due to the presence of red flags pointing to potential links to Iran.”
The agency listed a series of warning signs, including third-party allegations that the LPG was of Iranian origin, “economic, commercial, and logistical implausibility” surrounding the cargoes, and vessels that routinely engaged in suspicious conduct such as “Automatic Identification System manipulation, uneconomic or illogical vessel movements or port calls, and frequent name, ownership, and flag state changes.”
“Compliance with US sanctions is also not an exercise in box-checking,” OFAC said in its enforcement release, urging companies to investigate allegations of sanctions evasion and conduct enhanced due diligence when offered unusually low prices for energy products from high-risk regions.
Adani Enterprises suspended all LPG imports in June 2025 after media reports raised concerns about the origin of the cargoes and hired US-based legal counsel to conduct an internal investigation, OFAC said.
The agency said the company cooperated extensively, producing documents, answering questions promptly and strengthening its sanctions compliance procedures across the group.
OFAC noted that Adani Enterprises had not been penalised by the agency in the previous five years and that the LPG business accounted for less than 1.5% of the company’s consolidated revenue in 2025.
“This case highlights the risks and potential costs that non-US companies are exposed to when using the US financial system for transactions that involve the purchase, sale, and maritime transport of energy products from regions with a high risk of sanctions evasion activity,” OFAC said.