Rohit Bansal, a former employee of Goldman Sachs, yesterday pleaded guilty of illegally obtaining Fed documents from an insider in the central bank to use them for personal gain, according to the US media report. The charge to which he admitted was for misappropriating government property and is possibly looking at a jail sentence of up to one year. The sentencing will take place in March.
Documents included information about a New York bank Goldman Sachs was advising
The documents that Bansal used in violation of the law included information about a New York bank that Goldman Sachs was advising at the time the leak was discovered, which happened last year. Bansal had previously worked with Gross at the New York Federal Reserve, where he was “the central point of contact” for supervisory information regarding a certain New York bank, according to a statement from the New York Department of Financial Services, cited by the Wall Street Journal.
Partner in Crime Also Pleads Guilty
The insider who passed Bansal the documents, Jason Gross, also pleaded guilty, the media reported. The investment bank fired Bansal along with his manager when it detected the wrongdoing, Goldman said in an earlier statement, and launched its own investigation into the matter. It also reformed its procedure for hiring ex-government officials.
A Settlement reached last week by Goldman and the New York Department of Financial Services revealed that Gross had supplied confidential documents to Bansal on 25 occasions, which earned Bansal’s employer a $50-million fine plus a three-year ban on certain advisory activities in New York. Bansal himself has been permanently banned by the Federal Reserve from the banking industry, the central bank said in a statement.
