A few days after the jury retired in the Raj Rajaratnam trial, and it was clear that we were in for a long wait, I talked with a senior US securities regulator about the possibility of Mr Rajaratnam being cleared, in spite of the damning evidence against him. It would be, we agreed, a nightmare.
Happily, the nightmare has been avoided with the conviction of Mr Rajaratnam on all 14 counts. The sense of relief at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice that they can crack down on blatant abuses of inside information at hedge funds and on Wall Street must be profound.
The defence mounted by Mr Rajaratnam was insidious because it had an element of truth to it – inside information on corporate transactions and takeovers constantly leaks into the stock market, leading to movements in share prices before announcements. He was trading on equal terms with a lot of professionals, his lawyer argued.