India, May 15 -- Federal prosecutors at the US Department of Justice have initiated steps to dismiss criminal fraud and bribery charges against India's billionaire and Asia's richest man, Gautam Adani, marking a stunning reversal in a case that had sent shockwaves through global financial markets.

The decision to end the prosecution comes less than a year after he was indicted for what the US authorities allege role in a multi-hundred-million-dollar bribery scheme intended to secure lucrative solar energy contracts in India.

The move, widely seen as a significant shift in US enforcement priorities under the current Trump administration, effectively clears a major legal hurdle for the Adani Group's international expansion.

In an undiscl...