White Collar Roundup - July 2013

Rajaratnam's Conviction Affirmed on Appeal

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in United States v. Rajaratnam affirmed the defendant's conviction. Rajaratnam had appealed his conviction, disputing both the district court's handling of his motion to suppress the wiretap evidence and its instructions to the jury about securities fraud. The Second Circuit held that the framework set out in Franks v. Delaware, 348 U.S. 154 (1978), applied to motions to suppress wiretap evidence. It also held that the district court's instructions that the jury could convict the defendant of securities fraud if the "material non-public information given to the defendant was a factor, however small, in the defendant's decision to purchase or sell stock" was even more generous to the defendant than the "knowing possession" standard that is the law in the Second Circuit.