Hedge Fund Co-Founder Rajaratnam Told to Pay Record $92.8M SEC Fine Within 14 Days
Already sentenced to a record 11 years, fined $10 million and ordered to forfeit another $53.8 million after being convicted in an insider-trading case, Galleon Group co-founder Raj Rajaratnam made legal history again today.
He was fined $92.8 million by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the highest civil penalty ever levied on an individual in an insider-trading case, Bloomberg reports.
A federal district court judge in Manhattan today ordered Rajaratnam to pay the $92.8 million after granting the SEC’s request for judgment on the pleadings in the case, the news agency explains.
Rajaratnam was given 14 days to pay, according to CNNMoney.
Although the $156.6 million total of fines and penalties may seem a hefty price to pay, to the ordinary individual, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said in his order today that Rajaratnam’s net worth “considerably exceeds the financial penalties imposed in the criminal case,” Bloomberg reports.
Hence, Rakoff wrote, “When to this is added the huge and brazen nature of Rajaratnam’s insider trading scheme, which, even by his own estimate, netted tens of millions of dollars and continued for years, this case cries out for the kind of civil penalty that will deprive this defendant of a material part of his fortune.”
