insider trading

The US prosecutors will be able to widen the Galleon Group insider-trading case to investigate into hedge funds that had not been previously implicated according to the sources familiar with the situation. The Wall Street Journal reports that a hedge-fund manager referred to as "Tipper X" will assist in the Galleon Group case.

"Tipper X" was identified as Thomas Hardin, a former trader at Lanexa Global Management, the newspaper said. Separately, New Your Times also identified the 32-year-old Hardin as "Tipper X."

 The Monday document prolonged the term for the eight people charged in a coast-to-coast U.S. hedge fund insider trading investigation to provide them with an opportunity for possible resolution of their criminal cases. The document involves eight people who were among 14 defendants charged with fraud on November 5 in the widening of an insider-trading scandal that initially shook hedge funds in mid-October with the arrest of Galleon Management LP's billionaire founder Raj Rajaratnam.

 Raj Rajaratnam, Galleon Group hedge fund founder, who was accused by the US federal prosecutors of generating millions of dollars of illegal profits, filed a complaint against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission saying the regulator violated his constitutional rights by wiretapping his phone calls.

 Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are filing charges against 14 people that are allegedly accused of another insider trading scheme that involved hedge fund managers, top Silicon Valley executives and a group of white-shoe advisers. Complaints were filed against nine individuals and it is unclear if there is any connection with the previous complaints filed three weeks ago against Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of hedge fund Galleon Group, and Danielle Chiesi, an employee at the New Castle Group hedge fund.

 U.S. District Judge John Walter in Los Angeles declined a request submitted by Angelo Mozilo, the former chief executive of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp, as well as David Sambol and Eric Sieracki, respectively Countrywide's former chief operating officer and former chief financial officer, to dismiss a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit. The SEC charged Mozilo with securities fraud and insider trading.

 A billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, head of Galleon Management, a hedge fund advisory firm based in New York, was charged along with five other individuals by the Securities and Exchange Commission in a scheme that generated over $25 million in illegal gains. 

According to the SEC’s filing Rajaratnam and his associates used confidential information about company earnings or takeover activity at several firms including Google, Hilton and Sun Microsystems so as to conduct illegal stock transactions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday charged Richardson, Texas resident Reza Saleh with insider trading around the public announcement of Dell Inc.'s tender offer for Perot Systems earlier this week.