Speaking of of personal privacy rights, Chad Bray reports on a case in the Second Circuit:
A federal judge “clearly exceeded” his discretion in ordering Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam to turn over thousands of wiretapped conversations to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year, a federal appeals court has ruled.
Mr. Rajaratnam and Danielle Chiesi, a former consultant to hedge-fund firm New Castle Funds LLC, had challenged a February order by U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff that they must provide the SEC with copies of wiretap recordings and other materials given to them by prosecutors as part of discovery in their criminal insider-trading case. The SEC is pursuing a separate civil lawsuit in the matter.
The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the SEC had a legitimate right of access to the materials, but that right was outweighed by privacy interests, in part because he failed to limit the disclosure to relevant conversations. The wiretap issue was remanded to the district court for more proceedings.
Read more on WSJ.
(typo corrected — this case involves the privacy rights of individuals, not the corporation per se)