Goldman would pay a fine of $50 million (33 million pounds) and face new restrictions on how it handled delicate regulatory information, under a tentative deal with New York State's financial regulator, the newspaper said, citing lawyers briefed on the matter. (http://nyti.ms/1P11iES)

Under the settlement, the Wall Street bank would also be forced to take the rare step of acknowledging that it failed to adequately supervise the banker, Rohit Bansal, the newspaper said.

Bansal and his source, who worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the time of the leak, might plead guilty to misdemeanour theft charges instead of fighting the case, the lawyers told the newspaper, adding that the men would face up to a year in prison if they accept the plea deals.

When Bansal joined Goldman in July 2014, he was assigned to advise one of the same banks he had previously regulated when he worked at the New York Fed for seven years, the New York Times said.

Bansal received government information about that bank from Jason Gross, a former colleague who was still working at the New York Fed.

A Goldman spokesman told the New York Times it had reviewed its policies regarding hiring from governmental institutions. He said Bansal had worked for the bank for less than three months, and that Goldman "immediately began an investigation and notified the appropriate regulators" once it detected the leak.

Goldman did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the Manhattan federal prosecutors declined to comment, while the New York Department of Financial Services could not immediately be reached.

Bruce Barket, a lawyer for Gross, and Scott Morvillo, a lawyer for Bansal, were not immediately available to comment.

(Reporting by Richa Naidu in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)