Goldman Trading-Code Investment Put at Risk by Theft
July 6 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. may lose its investment in a proprietary trading code and millions of dollars from increased competition if software allegedly stolen by a former employee gets into the wrong hands, a prosecutor said.
Sergey Aleynikov, an ex-Goldman Sachs computer programmer, was arrested July 3 after arriving at Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey, U.S. officials said. Aleynikov, 39, who has dual American and Russian citizenship, is charged in a criminal complaint with stealing the trading software.
Most interesting is the following:
“The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways,” Facciponti said, according to a recording of the hearing made public today. “The copy in Germany is still out there, and we at this time do not know who else has access to it.”
Does that mean that GS was able to manipulate the markets?
much more speculative commentary at Zero Hedge
I'm sure
this will probably come out in the trial. More interesting is how this guy got the job in the first place.
GS has such large holdings, my first thought was access to this alone would cause market manipulation but this is true, when they are busy offshore outsourcing major software design, engineering and things like structural finance, i.e. they try to make the "geeks" the "grunts" instead of being on the same level as management....this is the kind of crap one gets. Technology is a major value area, should be subject to the same integrity required by a CFO, COO, etc.