NEW YORK — The deal that gave Goldman Sachs a $5 billion boost from renowned investor Warren Buffett at the height of the 2008 financial crisis was “as top secret as you could get,” a leading banker testified Wednesday at the insider-trading trial of one-time Goldman board member Rajat Gupta.
Gupta is accused of tipping Galleon hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam about the deal in an illegal breach of his fiduciary duties.
Separately, a prosecutor told the judge Wednesday, during a jury break, that a Goldman managing director, David Loeb, provided Rajaratnam with information about Intel, Apple and Hewlett-Packard.
Loeb’s name also came up Tuesday in evidence to the federal court jury hearing the Gupta trial.
A key defense argument is that Rajaratnam had sources other than Gupta to provide him confidential company information.
Former Goldman banker Byron Trott, a longtime Buffett confidant, told the jury that it was policy within a tightly knit group of executives who negotiated such deals “never to talk about confidential information in public, or elevators. It was grounds for being fired.”
