SEC Hits Ex-Goldman Director Gupta With $13.9M Fine, Ban

GUPTA/INSIDERTRADING

Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc Director Rajat Gupta was ordered to pay a $13.9 million penalty and banned from serving as an officer or director of a public company for having illegally passed corporate secrets to former hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, a top U.S. regulator said on Wednesday.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said the order was issued earlier in the day by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan, who also oversaw Gupta's related criminal trial.

Gupta is appealing his June 2012 conviction and two-year prison term for having fed confidential information he learned at Goldman board meetings to Rajaratnam, a former billionaire who ran Galleon Group.

A lawyer for Gupta was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler)