[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] on Monday rejected [order list, PDF] an appeal by Rajat Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs [corporate website] director convicted of insider trading. This rejection leaves in place a lifetime ban on serving as an officer or director of a public company and stems from the civil case against Gupta by the Securities and Exchange Commission [official website]. Last June the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] upheld [order, PDF] a district court ruling that imposed permanent injunctive relief and a $13.9 million civil penalty on Gupta. The penalty was not at issue in the appeal.
Gupta’s appeal to the Supreme Court concerning his criminal conviction is still pending [SCOTUSblog backgrounder]. Last March the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed [opinion, PDF] Gupta’s conviction [JURIST report] of insider trading. Gupta was convicted [JURIST report] of three counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud in June 2012, primarily upon the basis of statements he made by phone to Raj Rajaratnam [JURIST news archive], head of the Galleon Group hedge fund firm, informing him of Goldman Sachs’ investments and financial results. The district court sentenced Gupta to two years in prison, one year of supervised release and a $5 million fine. The Second Circuit affirmed [JURIST report] the conviction of Gupta’s co-conspirator Rajaratnam in June 2013. Rajaratnam was convicted [JURIST report] by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] in May 2011 and sentenced [JURIST report] to fines totaling almost $64 million and 11 years in prison, the longest sentence ever handed down for insider trading.