The former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta will be sentenced later today, a year after the Wall Street executive was convicted of passing boardroom secrets to the now imprisoned hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam.

Mr Gupta was accused of being "the illegal eyes and ears in the boardroom" for Raj Rajaratnam, passing on confidential information about Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis in 2008.

Talking to Michelle Fleury, the BBC's business reporter in New York, Peter Lattman of The New York Times explained that Rajat Gupta has received letters of support from a "who's who of cooperate America".

Mr Lattman questioned the motivation Rajat Gupta would have had to commit insider trading: he had a "wonderful life" and "bringing it all down by committing a crime where he didn't benefit financially" did not makes sense.

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