US law enforcement officials arrested a former Goldman Sachs employee over the weekend, accusing him of stealing sensitive automated trading codes and uploading them to a server based in Germany.

Sergey Aleynikov, a computer programmer who joined Goldman in May 2007 and resigned last month, was arrested as he disembarked from a flight at Newark airport and charged with theft of trade secrets and transfer of stolen property.

According to an affidavit filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr Aleynikov, who held the title of vice-president at Goldman before leaving on June 5, was part of a team that developed and improved the software codes in the firm’s trading programs. He was bound by Goldman’s standard confidentiality agreements.

The FBI affidavit alleges that Mr Aleynikov, after accepting the offer from his new firm, which has yet to be identified, downloaded about 32 megabytes of proprietary trading platform data from his desktop computer at work as well as his laptop at home on four separate occasions between June 1 and June 5, his last day at Goldman.

Source/Full Story: FT.com

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