New York (HedgeCo.net) As the Galleon insider trading enters into its third week, jurors are hearing recordings of hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam’s wiretapped conversations and more of Rajaratnamn’s colleages are being named in the largest insider trading case in US history.
Out of the 26 people arrested in this case, 19 have so far pleaded guilty.
MoneyControl – Adam Smith, a former portfolio manager at Raj Rajaratnam’s Galleon Group described pressure at the hedge fund to get “an edge” in trading and said he passed on confidential information including periodic email updates written in code.
“I remember after the announcement having a sinking feeling in my stomach that this may be a problem,” Smith said on the witness stand in Manhattan federal court.
Bloomberg – Smith said he also got leaks from Kamal Ahmed, a friend who worked as a Morgan Stanley investment banker. Smith told jurors in the criminal trial of Raj Rajaratnam that part of his job was “getting the numbers,” or learning revenue figures before they became public from insiders at Intel Corp. (INTC), the world’s largest semiconductor maker, Intersil Corp. (ISIL), Synaptics Inc. (SYNA) and other publicly traded companies.
Prosecutors showed Smith a copy of e-mails he wrote to Rajaratnam with the subject line “the two eyes,” a reference to the “I” at the start of each company’s ticker symbol. Rajaratnam had told him to “be vague” in e-mails, Smith said, according to the Bloomberg report.
Rajaratnam was arrested in October 2009 and charged with making $50 million after gaining the confidential information. Rajaratnam denies any wrongdoing. If found guilty, he could face up to 20 years in prison.
Alex Akesson
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