Rajat Gupta Not Sweating This Insider Trading Business

Author:
Bess Levin
Updated:
Jan 14, 2019
Original:
Oct 27, 2011

As you may have heard, yesterday morning, former McKinsey managing director Rajat Gupta was charged with insider trading. Is he worried he might be headed to jail in the not too distant future? Not in the slightest. Because 1) As previously mentioned, that time he took part in a fall 2008 conference call with GS management and fellow board members and after hanging up, made himself wait exactly twenty three seconds before getting Raj Rajaratnam on the horn with the details? Wasn't with the intent for the Galleon manager to actually trade on the material non-public information Rajat was sharing. And 2) Even if a court of law should interpret the evidence otherwise, someone's got his back.

Mr. Gupta believed it was auspicious to surrender on Diwali, a major holiday popularly known as the "Indian festival of lights," according to childhood friend Anand "Bill" Julka, who said he has spoken recently with Mr. Gupta. "He believes he is innocent and the gods will protect him if humans fail," Mr. Julka said.

It's all good.

It's a dirty, dirty phrase and one Gupta says doesn't apply to him; he's waiting for others to get on board.

What motivates people to share material non-public information with a person they know will use it for profit? For some, it's simply about greed. For others, it's about the thrill. For yet others, it's about pillow talk. For Rajat Gupta, the McKinsey director currently on trial for allegedly passing inside information to Raj Rajaratnam, it's about friendship, according to prosecutors who are trying to make the case that Raj and Rajat were the best of buds and that's what buds do. They they back each other up when they drunkenly hit on the girlfriend of the wrong guy at the bar, they stand up as best men at each others' weddings, they pick up the phone and say "Buy GS" when they know for a fact Warren Buffett is about to do so, too. And although attorneys representing Gupta don't deny the two were thick as thieves, they argue that while perhaps back in the day Rajat would have provided useful information to Raj, there is no way he would have done so after Big R twice violated the bonds of friendship. In the first instance, there was this: Defense attorneys have argued that Messrs. Gupta and Rajaratnam had a falling out in fall 2008 after Mr. Gupta lost his entire $10 million investment in a fund managed by Mr. Rajaratnam and therefore wouldn't have passed along inside information...The precise timing of their relationship's deterioration could be crucial in proving Mr. Gupta's guilt or raising doubts in the minds of jurors about whether he conspired to commit securities fraud...Defense attorneys have said Mr. Gupta was furious at Mr. Rajaratnam in the fall of 2008, when Mr. Gupta's $10 million investment in a fund called Voyager Capital Partners Ltd. evaporated. According to Mr. Kumar's testimony, Mr. Gupta felt Mr. Rajaratnam's negligence had allowed Voyager to collapse. And then this happened:

The less good news is that a jury found the former McKinsey executive guilty on three counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy for passing material non-public information to his friend*, convicted insider trader Raj Rajaratnam. The good news: 1. Rajat could go to jail for twenty years but probably won't ("Gupta faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the fraud charges and up to five years for the conspiracy charge. But his sentence is likely to be significantly lower under federal guidelines.") 2. Sentencing is scheduled for October 18 so he's got the whole summer and then some into a Zen place about going to prison. Also! Plenty of time to do all those things he was too busy for when he was working. This is gonna be his time. Time to taste the fruits and let the juices drip down his chin. The summer of Rajat! Gupta Found Guilty Of Insider Trading [WSJ] *Friend Rajat's ass.

The Times reports that the friction between Raj Rajaratnam and Rajat Gupta around the Federal Medical Center Devens is more than a little palpable.

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