Gupta protégé testifies in New York court
02 Jun 2012
Disgraced Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sat with his hands folded in a Manhattan federal courtroom yesterday as his protege Anil Kumar, 53, arrived to face his former mentor, who is on trial for insider trading.
Kumar worked with Gupta at consulting firm McKinsey, of which Gupta was chief from 1994 to 2003.
However, the Mumbai-born business consultant in his testimony told the jury that Gupta passed on illegal stock tips to hedge-fund honcho Raj Rajaratnam while serving on the boards of Goldman and Procter & Gamble.
Gupta has pleaded not guilty and could end up with a 25 years jail term in the event of a conviction.
Kumar told the jury that Gupta's ties to Rajaratnam's hedge fund Galleon Group dated back to 2006 when he was considering launching an asset management firm ahead of his 2007 retirement from McKinsey.
According to Kumar, the two of them often worked on many different plans to build a fund together - most of which never worked out.