The prosecution is close to resting its case in the trial of Raj Rajaratnam, the alleged criminal insider trading mastermind. We're already seeing some skirmishing over at least one defense expert witness.

As HFN notes, Rajaratnam's team aims to call Gregg Jarrell, a professor of economics and finance at the University of Rochester, whom some of you may also recognize as the former chief economist at the Securities and Exchange Commission. His testimony is expected to present an economic analysis of Rajaratnam's trades to demonstrate that the trades were based on information in the marketplace, not based on material insider information. This of course would underscore the defense's theory that Rajaratnam was creating mosaics of information, most of which was out in the public.

The prosecution is hoping to have him nixed as a witness, even though this on the surface seems to be classic expert witness stuff. The better bet might be to find another economist that will be willing to dump on Jarrell's analysis and methodology.

The defense portion of the case looks to be very interesting. They will try hard to get the jury buying into the whole idea of information mosaics, and how it is widely used and legitimate. And how Rajaratnam was using these mosaics as a basis for his trading.  

For more:
- here's an article from HFN

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