Insider trading: SEC charges ex-Goldman director

WASHINGTON, USA: Indian American Rajat Gupta, a former director at Goldman Sachs, has been slapped with insider trading charges for allegedly leaking secret details to Galleon Group hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam about Warren Buffett's plan to invest $5 billion in the company.

The 62-year-old Gupta is one of the highest-ranking corporate executives implicated in the government's wide-ranging insider trading probe which has resulted in criminal or civil charges against dozens of individuals. Tuesday's charges mark the first time that activity, that is said to have occurred at Goldman, was directly implicated in the probe.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleges that Gupta, who retired from the board in May 2010, provided Rajaratnam with information about the Wall Street bank's financial results for the second and fourth quarters of 2008 before they were made public.

Gupta described as a "friend and business associate" of Rajaratnam is said to have also tipped off the hedge fund manager to the investment made by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway before the deal was announced September 23, 2008.

The insider trading by Rajaratnam and others generated more than $18 million in illicit profits and loss avoidance, the SEC claims.

Gupta was an investor and director of Galleon's GB Voyager Multi-Strategy Fund SPC, which invested in a number of Galleon hedge funds, some tied to the insider trading scheme, and had other business potentially lucrative business interests with Rajaratnam, according to the SEC charges.

Gupta is also said to have improperly shared information about the December 2008 quarter at Procter & Gamble, where he was and remains a director, which generated $570,000 in illicit gains.

"Gupta was honoured with the highest trust of leading public companies, and he betrayed that trust by disclosing their most sensitive and valuable secrets," SEC enforcement chief Robert Khuzami said in a statement.

Gary Naftalis, Gupta's lawyer, issued a statement calling the SEC allegations "totally baseless," noting that there is no accusation his client traded in any of the securities at issue and that Gupta lost his entire $10 million investment in the Galleon Group fund mentioned in the SEC's charge.

Another Indian American, Former McKinsey consultant Anil Kumar pleaded guilty in January 2010 to leaking inside information about a possible merger to Rajaratnam, in return for $1.75 million.