On August 28, 2007, a former Goldman Sachs associate accused of being the mastermind behind an insider trading scheme, one that pocketed $6.7 million, pleaded guilty in Federal District Court in Manhattan.
In 2005, the firm advised both the New York Stock Exchange and Archipelago, which owns an electronic trading platform, in merger talks. Controversy surrounded the deal as John Thain, who heads the New York Stock Exchange, was a former Goldman Sachs Executive.[34]
Also in 2005, Goldman Sachs received criticism from civic groups and New York City politicians when they received approximately $1.6 billion in taxpayer subsidies (mostly through Liberty Bonds) from New York City and state taxpayers to finance the Firm's new headquarters near the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan in return for a commitment to keep at least 9000 employees and a major trading operation in Manhattan. It also comes with the expectation of the creation of at least 4000 new jobs by 2019.[35]
In 1986, David Brown was convicted of passing inside information to Ivan Boesky on a takeover deal.[36] Robert Freeman, who was a senior Partner, the Head of Risk Arbitrage, and a protégé of Robert Rubin, was also convicted of insider trading, with his own account and with the firm's.[37]
In 2006, as a result of an SEC investigation, Eugene Plotkin, a former research analyst in the Fixed Income division of Goldman Sachs, and David Pajcin, a former employee of Goldman Sachs, were prosecuted for insider trading. The prosecution began after regulators noticed unusually high trading volume before a merger announcement and discovered that a retired seamstress in Croatia, the aunt of Pajcin, had made more than $2 million. Plotkin and Pajcin traded in at least 25 stocks within one year based on inside information obtained through these schemes. Plotkin was sentenced to 57 months in prison and was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and to forfeit up to $6.7 million, the amount of the scam's illegal profits. Pajcin, who cooperated with the government, is expected to be sentenced soon.[38][39]
