The recent arrest of Sergey Aleynikov by New York State authorities on charges relating to his alleged misappropriation of Goldman Sachs’ high-frequency trading computer code, an arrest which followed his acquittal on federal charges based on the same conduct, provides an opportunity to examine the differences between federal and New York state laws governing computer crime. These issues are important not only to attorneys who defend individuals charged with these crimes, but also to businesses seeking to determine whether they have been the victim of such crimes.
‘United States v. Aleynikov’
Aleynikov worked for Goldman Sachs as a computer programmer in its high-frequency trading division. In April 2009, Aleynikov accepted a position with a hedge fund in Illinois that hoped to enter the high-frequency trading business. On his last day at work at Goldman Sachs, Aleynikov transferred hundreds of thousands of lines of source code to a server in Germany, and later downloaded those files to his home computer and a flash drive. He then took both the home computer and the flash drive to the offices of his new employer.1
