UPDATE: Galleon's Rajaratnam, Others Charged In Insider Case
16 Ottobre 2009 - 6:05PM
Dow Jones News
Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam and five others have been
arrested and charged in an $20 million insider-trading case,
prosecutors said.
According to court documents, Rajaratnam, the founder of the $7
billion Galleon Group and portfolio manager for the Galleon
Technology Funds, has been charged with four counts of conspiracy
and eight counts of securities fraud.
Others charged criminally in the case include Rajiv Goel,
director in strategic investments at Intel Corp.'s (INTC)
investment arm; Anil Kumar, a director at global
management-consulting firm McKinsey & Co.; Danielle Chiesi and
Mark Kurland of New Castle Partners LLC, the one-time equity hedge
fund group at Bear Stearns Asset Management Inc.; and Robert
Moffat, a senior vice president at International Business Machines
Corp. (IBM).
A call to Galleon Group wasn't immediately returned Friday.
Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, is expected to
discuss the case in more detail at a press conference at 1 p.m. EDT
Friday.
The allegations put Rajaratnam at the center of several insider
trades in which he allegedly caused Galleon funds to act on inside
information or passed along tips to others.
In one instance, prosecutors allege that Rajaratnam, between
January 2006 and July 2007, received nonpublic information about
Polycom Inc. (PLCM), Hilton Hotels Corp. and Google Inc. (GOOG) and
caused Galleon Technology Funds to make improper trades on that
information. As a result, the Galleon fund earned more than $12.7
million, prosecutors said.
In another instance, Chiesi, the New Castle employee, allegedly
received inside information regarding Akamai Technologies Inc.
(AKAM) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) from an Akamai
executive and Moffat, the IBM executive, prosecutors said.
She allegedly passed the information to Rajaratnam, who
allegedly provided her with information regarding AMD and other
publicly traded companies, the government said.
As a result of information Chiesi received from Rajaratnam,
Moffat and others, New Castle earned a profit of more than $2.4
million, prosecutors said.
-By Chad Bray, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-227-2017;
chad.bray@dowjones.com