He's been called many things – giant slayer, the new sheriff of Wall Street- US attorney for the Southern District, New York Preet Bharara has an incredible success record in his crackdown on insider trading.
Hedge-fund trader Raj Rajaratnam and former Mckinsey chief Rajat Gupta are among the many Wall Street giants his office has convicted. In an exclusive to CNBC-TV18, Bharara says that insider trading is 'pervasive' in the US and that organisations are not paying enough attention to building the right culture. Q: When I hear a name like Gupta or Raj, I just have to tell you if I were in your shoes, I would have said, ‘No way! Gupta didn’t need to do that. No way! Raj is a billionaire, that it can’t be true? Don’t you have a factor and you say, ‘No, it is just not possible, not that guy’? Preet Bharara: That’s what defence lawyers say. It is a very common defence. There are millionaires who shoplift. There are people who do really stupid things. If every one was brilliant, then we would be out of business. As in your question, ‘Why do people do these things?’ I don’t know, I actually don’t get it sometimes. I am not a psychologist, I am not a shrink, I am not a life coach.. Q: I wouldn’t take you as a life coach…. Preet Bharara: Some people commit crime in white collar areas because they are bad people. They don’t know right from wrong. Some people commit crime because they made a mistake and they got in over their heads.
Some people commit crime because there is a lot of pressure to meet deadlines. Some people are arrogant they think they are never going to get caught. Some people have done their calculation and they figure it’s a worth a risk.
There are lots of reasons for that, but I am going to tell you, I don’t know why. Somebody who has a billion dollars wants to risk his liberty and be taken away from his or her family for years and years for an extra million bucks. I think that’s an important thing to be telling, in particular, young people who are coming into firms.
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