A former director of Goldman Sachs has been sentenced to two years in jail for leaking boardroom secrets to a former hedge fund manager.

Prosecutors in the United States had been seeking a sentence of between eight and ten years.

Rajat Gupta, 63, was also ordered to pay a $5m fine for his insider trading crimes, which the judge called "disgusting" and "a terrible breach of trust".

He is the highest-profile Wall Street figure to be jailed in a wide-ranging crackdown on insider trading.

Gupta was convicted last June of three counts of securities fraud.

He was also found guilty of one count of conspiracy for leaking Goldman Sachs boardroom secrets to Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge fund manager at the centre of a US government crackdown on insider trading over the past four years.

Rajaratnam is now serving 11 years in prison.

Gupta's lawyers filed court papers asking he be spared prison, citing his years of charitable works, and suggested he be ordered to probation and community service instead.

The US government said Gupta should get a significant prison term, saying his "crimes are shocking" and he time and time again flouted the law and abused his position of trust as a corporate board member.

"Although Gupta's criminal conduct appears to represent a deviation from an otherwise law-abiding life, Gupta's crimes were not an isolated occurrence or a momentary lapse in judgment," Assistant US Attorney Richard Tarlowe wrote in the government's filing. "Indeed, the opposite is true."

Prosecutors also said that Goldman is seeking $6.8m in restitution for legal fees and related costs it paid related to the Gupta case. About 25% of that amount is compensation that Goldman paid to Gupta as a director, a court filing said.