(Corrects headline to show that only two of the three
defendants, not all three, were charged with stealing source
code)
* Two former traders at Flow Traders and a third man charged
by New York DA
* Two of the men planned to start own trading firm using
proprietary code -prosecutors
* The men allegedly emailed copies of files to their
personal email accounts
By Joseph Ax
NEW YORK, Aug 26 (Reuters) – Two men have been charged by
New York prosecutors with stealing secret computer code from a
high-frequency trading firm in an effort to start their own
business.
Jason Vuu, a former trader at Flow Traders LLC in Manhattan,
was charged with emailing himself trading strategies, valuation
algorithms and proprietary code from the firm and sharing the
code with another man, Simon Lu, according to criminal
complaints filed by the office of Manhattan District Attorney
Cyrus Vance.
Another former trader at Flow Traders, Glen Cressman, was
charged with copying files containing trading strategies and
valuation algorithms without permission, the complaints said.
Paul Shechtman, a lawyer for Lu, and Jeremy Saland, a lawyer
for Vuu, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on
Monday.
Charles Ross, who represents Cressman, said his client was
innocent.
“He was a fine employee, and when everything about the case
is aired, it will be clear he did nothing wrong,” Ross said.
The arrests came a year after Vance’s office charged former
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. programmer Sergey Aleynikov with
stealing secret trading code. Aleynikov was convicted in federal
court for the same actions, but his conviction was thrown out in
February 2012 by an appeals court, which said federal espionage
laws did not cover his alleged theft.
Vance then charged Aleynikov under New York state law.
Earlier this year, a judge denied Aleynikov’s attempt to have
the state charges dismissed on double jeopardy grounds.
Aleynikov, who pleaded not guilty, is free on bail.
Both Vance and Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose
office brought the initial case against Aleynikov, have made
combating computer crime and corporate espionage a top priority.
Lu, Vuu and Cressman all face multiple counts of unlawful
duplication of computer-related material and unauthorized use of
secret scientific material, the same charges Aleynikov is
facing. The charges carry up to four years in prison.
Vuu sent copies of files from his work email account to his
personal email address 10 times from August 2011 to August 2012,
the complaint alleged. He also shared source code with Lu via
the file-hosting service Dropbox after Lu suggested the code
could help them start their own firm, according to the
complaint.
Cressman’s personal email account received copied files
containing trading strategies and valuation algorithms twice in
December 2012, according to the complaint.
The charges were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; editing by Noeleen Walder and Dan
Grebler)
