By Arun Kumar
Washington, March 8 (IANS) With the insider trading trial of Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam set to begin Tuesday, one of his alleged tipsters Indian-American Rajat Gupta has resigned from three corporate boards, including American Airlines.
In a filing to US market regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), AMR Corp, the parent company of American Airlines, Monday said 62-year-old Gupta "voluntarily resigned from the boards of directors of AMR Corporation and its subsidiary, American Airlines, effective immediately".
The ex-director of Goldman Sachs also resigned from the board of outsourcing company Genpact Ltd, according to a separate regulatory filing.
Gupta notified Genpact of his resignation as non-executive chairman of the board of directors and as a member of the board of directors, the filing said. The company received his formal resignation letter Tuesday.
Gupta had also earlier served as a member of the board's nominating and governance committee.
The IIT, Harvard Business School and MIT alumnus also resigned as director from the board of Connecticut-based electronic systems manufacturer Harman International Industries.
Last week, the SEC's Enforcement Division alleged that Gupta fed Rajaratnam inside information about earnings at Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble when he was a board member at those companies.
In addition, he is also alleged to have leaked details of a $5 billion investment in Goldman from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway minutes before it was announced in September 2008.
Gupta, who stepped down from Procter & Gamble's board last week and retired from Goldman's board when reports of an investigation first surfaced last spring, has denied the claims through his lawyer, who called the SEC's allegations "baseless".
Gupta's resignation comes just as Rajaratnam's trial is set to begin in Manhattan's Southern District court Tuesday.
Aside from the alleged trading off of tips from Gupta on Goldman and Procter & Gamble, Rajaratnam is being accused on profiting from inside information related to Cisco and other stocks.