Two men, one a former trader, have been charged with stealing secret computer code from a high-frequency trading firm in Manhattan in an effort to start their own business, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said. Another man was also charged in the scheme.

The former trader, Jason Vuu, who worked at Flow Traders in Manhattan, was charged with e-mailing himself trading strategies, valuation algorithms and proprietary code from the firm and sharing the code with Simon Lu, according to the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr.

Mr. Vuu sent copies of files from his work e-mail account to his personal e-mail address 10 times from August 2011 to August 2012, the complaint said. He also shared source code with Mr. Lu via the file-hosting service Dropbox after Mr. Lu suggested the code could help them start their own firm, according to the complaint.

Paul Shechtman, a lawyer for Mr. Lu, 25, of Pittsburgh, and Jeremy Saland, a lawyer for Mr. Vuu, 26, of California, did not immediately respond on Monday to requests for comment.

Another former trader at Flow Traders, Glen Cressman, 26, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was charged with copying files containing trading strategies and valuation algorithms without permission, according to the complaint.

Mr. Cressman’s personal e-mail account received copied files containing trading strategies and valuation algorithms twice in December 2012, according to the complaint.

Charles Ross, who represents Mr. 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,” Mr. Ross said.

Mr. Lu, Mr. Vuu and Mr. Cressman face multiple counts of unlawful duplication of computer-related material and unauthorized use of secret scientific material. The charges carry up to four years in prison.

They were arraigned on the charges two weeks ago and are due back in court on Nov. 18, when they could face grand jury indictments.

A year ago, the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged a former programmer for Goldman Sachs, Sergey Aleynikov, with stealing secret trading code. Mr. Aleynikov was convicted in federal court, but an appeals court overturned his conviction in February 2012, restricting the use of a national law cited in the federal prosecutors’ case.

Mr. Aleynikov was then charged under New York state law. He has pleaded not guilty and is free on bail.

The charges in the Flow Traders case were reported earlier this week by The Wall Street Journal.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/business/two-charged-with-stealing-code-from-trading-firm.html?partner=rss&emc=rss