The infamous hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, known for its punishing culture, had a name for its policy of firing money-losing portfolio managers: “Down and out.”

Dan Berkowitz, the CFO at Steve Cohen’s giant hedge fund, said the Stamford, Conn., firm’s slang was spelled out clearly in its employment contracts.

“If [a portfolio manager] lost a certain percentage of the capital we’d given them [to manage], the contract gave us the right to terminate the employment,” Berkowitz told the jury while testifying Monday at the trial of Mathew Martoma, the former SAC portfolio manager accused of insider trading.

For those who did not have a contract, he said, the repercussions of losing money were “understood.”

The high pressure to perform at SAC has been widely cited as one reason for the widespread illicit trading by its employees. Martoma is the eighth SAC money man to face insider-trading charges. The previous seven have been convicted, as has the firm itself.

Martoma was fired from SAC two years after the alleged inside trading in Elan and Wyeth stocks — for which he is on trial — earned him a $9.3 million bonus. He was derided as a “one-trick pony” at the firm for his profitable call on those stocks.