The final judgment, entered yesterday by Honorable Jed Rakoff of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, found Rajaratnam liable for a civil monetary penalty of $92,805,705, the largest penalty ever assessed against an individual in an SEC insider trading case, according to the Commission.

The SEC brought civil charges against Rajaratnam in October 2009, alleging that he and his Galleon hedge fund had engaged in an insider trading scheme. The complaint was later amended to add more defendants and additional insider trading schemes, which it claimed generated over $52 million in illicit gains.

The civil action against Rajaratman and Galleon formed part of a large insider trading probe, according to the Commission, which has resulted in civil charges against 29 individuals and entities.

In the parallel criminal case against Rajaratnam, after having been found guilty on all 14 accounts of insider trading, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison and ordered to pay around $53.8 million in forfeiture of illicit gains and $10 million in criminal fines. The civil penalty is in addition to these sums.

The case was a landmark in terms of the government's use of extensive phone tapping in an insider trading case, measures usually reserved for organized crime and drug trafficking probes, according to a Reuters report at the time.

During the trial, voices of Rajaratnam and his friends and business associates were broadcast in the courtroom. The court learned how Rajaratnam worked his mobile phone even when he was on holiday on a beach in Miami or in Europe, making arrangements to deposit money into accounts for friends who had provided him tips.

The tipsters included executives at major blue-chip companies such as Intel Corp, and Rajat Gupta, who was once head of elite management consultancy McKinsey & Co and a former Goldman Sachs Group board member. Gupta was charged by the SEC with insider trading on 26 October.

At its peak in early 2008, Galleon had $7 billion under management.