Rajat Gupta's Week Is Looking Up
No, he didn't get the outside the box punishment his lawyers were hoping for, i.e. volunteer work in Rwanda but he did receive a far less harsh sentence than the 10 years in the big house prosecutors had requested, which has got to feel pretty good.
Rajat K. Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble director, was sentenced to two years in prison on Wednesday for leaking boardroom secrets to the former hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam. Mr. Gupta, 63, who ran the consulting firm McKinsey & Company and served as a top adviser to the foundations of Bill Gates and Bill Clinton, is the most prominent figure to face prison in the government’s sweeping crackdown on insider trading. He was also ordered to pay a $5 million fine.
In related news, tomorrow lawyers for confirmed insider trader Raj Rajaratnam will ask for his conviction to be overturned, based on the argument that the recording of his phone conversations-- such as the one made by Rajat Gupta 23 seconds after a Goldman Sachs board meeting-- violated his "constitutional privacy rights and federal laws governing electronic surveillance." According to the one half of Dealbreaker that is licensed to practice law in New York, it's unlikely that Rajaratnam's conviction will be overturned, which will surely come as a disappointment considering the hours he's been logging at the gym and the body that's emerged as a result (so remarkable that attorneys who don't even represent him but have caught a glimpse can't help but commenting on how good he looks). On the other hand, apparently he's been in "good spirits" lately so perhaps he prefers it in there.
Rajat Gupta Gets Two Years In Prison [Dealbook]
