Plea possible Thursday for accused ex-McKinsey man

Anil Kumar, (L) a director of McKinsey & Co global management consulting firm is escorted by an FBI agent in New York October 16, 2009.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Anil Kumar, a former McKinsey & Co director accused of leaking information in the Galleon hedge fund insider trading case, will appear in court on Thursday after signaling last month that he may have reached a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors.

The office of the U.S. Attorney and a judge's clerk said Kumar would attend a proceeding in Manhattan federal court. If Kumar pleads guilty, he would be the seventh person in a coast-to-coast investigation to do so.

Last month, Kumar agreed to waive indictment in the case, usually an indication that a defendant has reached a deal with prosecutors that could include a guilty plea. McKinsey on December 4 said Kumar had left the management consulting firm.

Kumar's lawyer was not immediately available to comment on Wednesday.

Galleon hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam is the most prominent defendant among 21 people criminally or civilly charged in an insider trading case involving employees of some of America's best-known companies, including International Business Machines Corp, McKinsey & Co and Intel Capital, an arm of Intel Corp.

A bail hearing previously due on Friday for Rajaratnam has been postponed until January 12. Rajaratnam, a Sri Lankan-born U.S. citizen, is free on bail of $100 million, which he has asked a Manhattan federal court judge to reduce to $20 million.

On Tuesday, prosecutors said in a court memorandum that he faces additional charges. Rajaratnam pleaded not guilty following his arrest on October 16.

Prosecutors said in announcements in October and November last year that their investigation showed insider trading networks traded in shares of Google, Sun Microsystems, Advanced Micro Devices, Polycom, Hilton Hotels, Intel, Clearwire, Akamai, Atheros Securities and IBM, among others.

The cases are USA v Raj Rajaratnam et al, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 09-01184 and USA v Zvi Goffer et al in the same court, No. 09-mj-02438.

(Reporting by Grant McCool; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)