Former Goldman Sachs Director Charged with Insider Trading
October 26th, 2011I’m shocked. Are you shocked? *sigh*
Via: New York Times:
Rajat K. Gupta, a former Goldman Sachs director and McKinsey & Company chief executive, surrendered to the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday morning to face charges of insider trading, the latest development in the government’s multiyear crackdown on illegal activity on Wall Street.
In charging Mr. Gupta, the government will tie up one of the biggest loose ends resulting from the investigation into the Galleon Group, which began nearly five years ago at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Since then, more than two dozen people have pleaded guilty or been convicted of swapping illegal tips around company earnings and other major corporate events. Raj Rajaratnam, the Galleon co-founder, was sentenced to 11 years in prison this month for making tens of millions of dollars by trading on confidential tips.
Authorities have broadly pursued insider trading on Wall Street, exacting guilty pleas from a chemist at the Federal Drug Administration, among others, as recently as this month. While the majority of those charged have been traders and analysts on Wall Street, Mr. Gupta, 62, is the first to be implicated from the upper echelons of corporate America.
The charges are a stunning reversal of fortunes for Mr. Gupta. A native of India, he graduated from Harvard Business School and had a global profile as an adviser to some of the nation’s most iconic companies. He served as a director at Goldman, Procter & Gamble and the parent company of American Airlines. In addition to his professional pedigree, Mr. Gupta was a noted philanthropist, serving in coveted posts with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Mr. Gupta’s case has been a tricky one for the government. Though his name came up repeatedly at Mr. Rajaratnam’s trial, both in testimony and in secretly recorded phone conversations, the Justice Department never filed charges against him. The S.E.C. filed an administrative action against Mr. Gupta, and he countersued. The agency later dropped the civil proceedings, but reserved the right to refile the case.
On Wednesday, the S.E.C. refiled their civil action against Mr. Gupta.
The strength of the government’s case is unclear, but details that emerged during Mr. Rajaratnam’s trial were explosive. In their original action, the S.E.C. accused Mr. Gupta of passing confidential information about Goldman and Procter to Mr. Rajaratnam, who then traded on the news. The agency also claimed that Mr. Gupta gave Mr. Rajaratnam advance word of Warren E. Buffett’s $5 billion investment in Goldman during the darkest days of the financial crisis, in addition to other confidential information.
I’m even more *shocked* (and yes, perhaps even a little bit awed) that the investigation led to the filing of formal charges against guys with surnames such as Gupta and Rajaratnam, as opposed to say, Blankfein.
Make of that what you will.
Yes, I was thinking that just like the take-down of DSK, Gupta and Rajaratnam pissed off some more powerful goons and were thus cut loose. Double plus good, as by doing so, the Goons Higher Up on the Pyramid make it look as if the SEC were doing its job.