AMD Exec's Loose Lips Help Sink Galleon

A top official said to be former CEO Hector Ruiz divulged potentially market-moving info to a person at the heart of the Galleon insider-trading scandal

By Arik Hesseldahl

A high-ranking executive of chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) privately shared a lot of potentially market-moving information at crucial moments in the company's recent history, according to court documents.

The executive is former AMD CEO Hector Ruiz, according to a person familiar with the matter. As detailed in filings, Ruiz's disclosures offer an up-close glimpse of the information-sharing at the heart of a scandal that has rocked Galleon Management, a hedge fund controlled by billionaire trader Raj Rajaratnam.

In all, six people including Rajaratnam have been arrested on allegations they profited from trading on nonpublic information about such tech companies as Google (GOOG), Akamai (AKAM), Intel (INTC), Clearwire (CLWR), Polycom (PLCM) and Sun Microsystems (JAVA), now being bought by Oracle (ORCL). Rajaratnam and attorneys for the other accused have denied the allegations.

Ruiz has not been accused of wrongdoing, though a criminal complaint filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York says he leaked information about an important corporate event before it was made public. He discussed the complex spin-off of Global Foundries, the chip manufacturing company AMD now co-owns with an investment firm controlled by the government of the Arab Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The Wall Street Journal initially identified Ruiz as the AMD official named in the complaint.

Feeding Info Months in Advance

According to the complaint, Ruiz fed information to Danielle Chiesi, a suspect in the case, during the months of June through September 2008. The spin-off was announced publicly on Oct. 7 that year.

Ruiz, 63, now serves as chairman of Global Foundries and is no longer at AMD. A representative for Ruiz declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Global Foundries. AMD is "thoroughly reviewing the situation," the company said in a statement. "We are not aware of any allegation of criminal misconduct on the part of any current or former AMD employees, nor have any current or former AMD employees been charged with a crime."

Chiesi, 43, is a portfolio manager at New Castle, an investment firm based in White Plains, N.Y., that has ties to Galleon Management. The complaint by the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York accuses Chiesi; Mark Kurland, another New Castle executive; and Robert Moffat, then a senior vice-president at IBM (IBM) with insider trading. The trio conspired to gather confidential nonpublic information about companies and sought to coordinate findings with those of Rajaratnam, according to the complaint.

Rajaratnam is also accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission in a separate complaint of seeking insider information from Anil Kumar, a director at McKinsey and Co. who was advising AMD at the time. Rajaratnam and Kumar are among six people, including Chiesi, Kurland, and Moffat, charged by the SEC.

In the wake of the accusations, Galleon has wound down most of its $3.7 billion in funds. In a letter to employees and clients, Rajaratnam says the allegations leveled against him "are without exception, entirely baseless."

Lawyers for Chiesi, Kurland, Moffat, and Rajaratnam did not return requests for comment. Charles Clayman, a lawyer representing Kumar in the SEC case, says Kumar denies the charges against him.

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