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McKinsey's gonna gitcha

Published: Oct 30, 2009

 Consulting       

After news last week that The Galleon Group, one of the largest hedge fund investors in tech companies, would be closing shop due to just a bit of insider trading by its founder, Raj Rajaratnam, McKinsey is now involved. Yesterday, the firm announced that it has begun an investigation of one of its senior partners, Anil Kumar, whose hands also appear to be sullied. McKinsey is hoping to nail Kumar with securities fraud and conspiracy for passing along information to Galleon about some McK clients. This reaction shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with McKinsey's notoriously tight-lipped policy toward client confidentiality, and the WSJ goes as far as calling the situation one of McKinsey's "biggest scandals ever." A bit of advice for Kumar: Better start running.

Unrelated to the McKinsey plot, here's an interesting bit from the WSJ written by two students in India. Their thoughts on how South Asians' prominent involvement in the Galleon case should not be a point of discussion is remarkably reminiscent of reactions in Jewish circles when the Madoff scandal came to light, bringing with it a whole host of stereotype-induced commentary.

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