The charges stemmed from an investigation by the United States Attorney's Office into allegations that Rajaratnam and Chiesi conspired in insider trading of stock for several large companies.

[1] On the same day the USAO filed criminal charges against the defendants, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil case against them based on the same allegations, claiming that the defendants engaged in "widespread and repeated insider trading" at several hedge funds, including the now-defunct Galleon Group, during which time they received tips from insiders regarding "market moving events such as quarterly earnings announcements, takeovers, and material contracts" and allegedly used that information to earn over $25 million in illegal profits.

The district court ordered the defendants to disclose the wiretapped conversations to the SEC, declaring that "the notion that only one party to a litigation should have access to some of the most important non-privileged evidence bearing directly on the case runs counter to basic principles of civil discovery in an adversary system".

The defendants also argued that the SEC did not constitute an "aggrieved person" for the purposes of demonstrating "good cause" for disclosure of the fruits of wiretapping, as required by Title III.

The SEC argued that they had a right to access the materials and, pursuant to United States v. Miller, the discovery order could be remedied by the defendants on appeal.

[8] The court noted that even though they lacked interlocutory jurisdiction to review the discovery order, a writ of mandamus was still appropriate to prevent the disclosure because of the privacy issues at stake.

[1] The court explicitly limited the scope of their finding to the present facts, noting that the ruling "does not mean that a writ of mandamus will always be appropriate to remedy an erroneous disclosure order".

[1] The court cautioned that although it determined that such a disclosure, in general, is not unlawful based on Title III, this did not imply that the discovery order in the current case was legal.