When Rajat Gupta was sentenced to two years in prison last Wednesday, the government finally nailed to the wall the largest scalp it has taken to date in its multiyear investigation of rampant insider trading on Wall Street. He wasn’t the richest—that would be erstwhile hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, the man to whom Mr. Read More
The Securities and Exchange Commission settled insider trading charges today against the former tech company chief financial officer alleged to have leaked insider information to imprisoned Galleon Group hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam.
In 2006, Xilinx CFO Kris Chellam tipped Mr. Rajaratnam to negative trends in the company’s business at odds with public projections, allowing Galleon to turn a profit of nearly $1 million, according to a press release: Read More
One day after corporate chieftain Rajat Gupta was sentenced to two years in prison after his conviction on insider trading charges, a different judge sentenced a former AT&T employee who pleaded guilty to sharing privileged information with investors to one year’s jail time.
Alnoor Ebrahim, who pleaded guilty in June to sharing sales information for AT&T handset devices, including the iPhone and Blackberry. Mr. Ebrahim, who was sentenced by Judge Paul J. Oetken, was paid more than $180,000 for his work with expert network Primary Global Research, which consisted of hundreds of calls with the firm’s clients. Read More
Rajat Gupta, the former chief executive officer of McKinsey & Co., was sentenced to two years imprisonment for insider trading this afternoon during a hearing presided over by Judge Jed Rakoff at the U.S. Southern District courthouse.
Mr. Gupta, who was convicted in May of using his position on the board of directors at Goldman Sachs to pass privileged information to Galleon Group hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, has sought probation in lieu of imprisonment. The government recommended a jail term of eight to 10 years.
“With today’s sentence, Rajat Gupta now must face the grave consequences of his crime,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in an emailed statement. “His conduct has forever tarnished a once-sterling reputation that took years to cultivate. We hope that others who might consider breaking the securities laws will take heed from this sad occasion and choose not to follow in Mr. Gupta’s footsteps.” Read More
Politico got its hands on a copy of Greg Smith’s Why I Left Goldman Sachs, and published some excerpts yesterday. There’s an allegation that the bank advised clients to buy and sell stock options on European banks amid the region’s ongoing debt crisis, so that the firm could profit by taking the other side Read More
Bill Gates and former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan are among the friends of Rajat Gupta who have penned letters to Judge Jed Rakoff seeking leniency when the convicted insider trader is sentenced later this month.
A lobbying group backed by Elliott Management’s Paul Singer enlisted the American Agriculture Movement, the American Association Read More
Raj Rajaratnam didn’t, nor did Rajat Gupta, nor did any of the other seven defendants to stand trial during the government’s ongoing crackdown on insider trading testify in their own defense. Whitman Capital founder Doug Whitman, accused of earning about $1 million by trading on privileged information, did, testifying to his innocence over the course Read More
Geithner visits Congress: Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner will testify before the House Financial Services Committee today about the rate-rigging scandal, where it figures he’ll be asked why the New York Fed failed to alert other regulators when a Barclays employee told the Fed that the bank was rigging Libor in April 2008. (Mr. Geithner Read More
Finally, sense: As you may recall, Bill Johnson was slated to assume Duke Energy’s chief executive office per the terms of a merger between Duke Energy and Progress Energy. (Mr. Johnson had run Progress Energy before the merger.) Well, Mr. Johnson did assume the office, but on the next day he left the company, scooping Read More
Whither Europe: Greece’s leading pro-bailout party—conservative New Democracy, which won Sunday’s elections, and socialist Pasok—are still negotiating to form a coalition to govern the teetering nation. Assuming a deal gets done, the first task will be to convince Europe to rewrite the Greek rescue agreement to provide more time—and financing—to meet austerity goals. Read More
