U.S. wants courtroom sealed for Goldman [Sachs] trial

[rmstock]

U.S. wants courtroom sealed for Goldman [Sachs] trial
By Reuters
Posted yesterday at 9:59 a.m.
http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2010 ... crets.html

U.S. prosecutors asked a federal judge to seal the courtroom for part of the upcoming criminal trial of a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. computer programmer, an effort to protect the secrecy of the bank's high-frequency trading platform.

Prosecutors said in a court filing that there is a "compelling interest in favor of privacy" for Goldman in the trial of the former employee, Sergey Aleynikov.

They cited a federal law to protect owners of trade secrets and a desire not to cause the investment bank to be "re-victimized" through the release of confidential, proprietary trading secrets.

"Any public disclosure of a trade secret poses the substantial risk that the trade secret's value to its owner will be significantly diminished, if not destroyed outright," Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Facciponti wrote.

Aleynikov is accused of stealing Goldman's computer code. He is set to go on trial on Nov. 29 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on two charges alleging theft of trade secrets and transportation of stolen property in interstate commerce.

A third charge alleging unauthorized computer access was dismissed last month. Aleynikov has pleaded not guilty.

Goldman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the request to seal the Manhattan federal courtroom.

It is common for parties to request the closure of courtrooms when proprietary secrets or sensitive information might otherwise be disclosed publicly.

Aleynikov is accused of improperly downloading Goldman code to an outside server on June 5, 2009, his last day working at the company.

The government contends he later took a laptop containing code and another storage device to his new employer, Teza Technologies LLC, a high-frequency trading start-up in Chicago.

Aleynikov was arrested at Newark Liberty International Airport on July 3, 2009. Teza later suspended him.

The defense has been seeking access to Goldman's trading system, including source code.

This report was found on slashdot.org, "Slashdot - News for nerds, stuff that matters"
in the section "Your Rights Online" :

Your Rights Online: Prosecutors Request Closed Courtroom For Goldman HFT Programmer's Trial
Posted by timothy on Thursday October 28, @02:06PM
from the sealed-in-carbonite dept. court
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/10/28/ ... mers-Trial

dave562 writes "Goldman Sachs' lawyers have asked the Federal judge to seal the court room during the trial of Sergey Aleynikov. Aleynikov was one of the programmers who developed Goldman's High Frequency Trading (HFT) programs. What does this say about the state of the financial industry? Given the problems HFT seems to have caused over the last few years, shouldn't more light be shined into the dark corners of how it works?"