An important white collar conviction came down very recently in the Southern District of New York. Raj Rajaratnam, a Sri Lankan born billionaire investor, was found guilty by a jury in Manhattan and was convicted of fourteen counts of securities fraud and conspiracy. Until sentencing, which is scheduled for July, Rajaratnam has been placed under home detention with electronic monitoring. Credit for the conviction goes in large part to use of wiretaps. Federal prosecutors used dozens of recordings to prove their claims of insider trading. In some of these recordings Rajaratnam could be heard sharing inside information and also creating plans to create email records to cover up the fact that it was inside information. In the wake of Rajaratnam, wiretaps are expected to become a prosecution tool of choice for insider trading cases. Westlaw has excellent sources of information for wiretaps and insider trading.

WIRETAP This database contains a two volume set that includes coverage of criminal and civil statutes, penalties and remedies. Expert authors Clifford Fishman and Anne McKenna present vital information on obtaining and executing eavesdropping warrants, computer and network search warrants, minimization requirements and procedures, monitoring and reporting instructions, suppression, recording identification, pretrial and trial tactics, and more.

CCGINTRR, Corporate Counsel’s Guide to Insider Trading and Reporting will help attorneys, officers, directors, and others with insider trading law compliance. Definitions and key concepts are listed, and topics covered include potential causes of action, reporting and disclosure, liability, remedies and enforcement, and corporate compliance. Also included are several sample insider trading plans and insider trading policies.

SECBROMLOW, Bromberg and Lowenfels on Securities Fraud and Commodities Fraud contains a full analysis of all of the securities fraud provisions, particularly Rule 10b-5.

INSIDETRAD, Insider Trading Regulation, Enforcement, and Prevention contains Extensive coverage of issues raised by the criminal and SEC investigations into suspicions of widespread hedge fund insider trading.

SECLAW-HB, Securities Law Handbook provides in-depth coverage of basic and specialized issues.

You can see and track the Rajaratnam docket:

DOCK-NY-SDCT, (DEF (raja-ratnam )), 5 docs

You can also set up a docket alert in Westlaw to see if and when the Rajaratnam case gets appealed.

While it may have been a while since Bernie Madoff was front-page news, his escapades are still a popular research topic for attorneys.  The Reference Attorneys continue to receive a fair number of calls concerning litigation involving Mr. Madoff.

While a DOCK-ALL or ALLNEWS search is probably best (remember to truncate Bernie as bern!)  we’ve also had one or two customers asking if Westlaw has any Madoff-specific databases.  While no such database is currently available for Bernie Madoff, Westlaw does have several databases focused on famous, popular, or otherwise “notable” cases.

 Perhaps the best example of a notable case would be the O.J. Simpson trial, which has a few databases dedicated to it: OJ-COMMENT includes case commentary, while OJ-TRANS is comprised of trial transcripts and other documents.  There are similar databases available for the Unabomber (UBABOMB-TRANS), Timothy McVeigh (MCVEIGH-TRANS and MCVEIGH-DP), and the even the JKF assassination (JFK-TRANS).  If violence isn’t your thing, you can also check out MICROSOFT-TRANS and MICROAPP-DOC, which cover the Microsoft antitrust litigation.

 If you’re ever curious if we have a database specific to a notable trial, try typing the name of the trial’s defendant in Search for a Database.  For example, in the case of Bernie Madoff try entering “Madoff” in Search for a Database.  Westlaw will tell you that you’ve entered an invalid database.  Typing “OJ Simpson,” however, will get you several options to choose from.

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Pending government investigations of insider trading that possibly occurred during the financial crisis that started in 2008 are leading to the potential for complex civil actions against finance and investment firms.  Hubuschman et al. v. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. et al. is a derivative action brought by Goldman Sachs shareholders against the company’s officers and directors.  (The complaint is on Westlaw at 2010 WL 1654116 and the docket can be located here: (1:10cv03476))

Finance blogs are taking notice and the Wall Street Journal blog indicates that other figures from the finance industry and other financial firms might be implicated later this summer.   The Hubuschman complaint was filed on April 26, 2010, and it may be just the opening salvo by attorneys and shareholders against firms like Goldman Sachs.  As the Summer of 2010 unfolds, access to pleadings like the Hubuschman complaint on Westlaw will help interested attorneys and associates see the legal issues raised by such complex derivative actions.