[BreachExchange] Former Goldman Sachs trader bitter over £400,000 bonus refuses to return stolen secrets

[Audrey McNeil]

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/former-goldman-sachs-trader-
bitter-over-400000-bonus-refuses-return-stolen-secrets-1596858

A former Goldman Sachs banker who stole his employer's trade secrets has
ignored an order to surrender them, in order to cash in on profits after
his release from prison, a London court was told.

Jurors at Southwark Crown Court heard Ke Xu, a Cambridge maths graduate,
"deliberately" refused to surrender software worth millions of pounds that
he seized from his former employer, Trenchant Trading Systems.

Xu, who worked as a quantitative analyst writing trading strategies for
Goldman Sachs, allegedly utilise his computer skills to gain possession of
algorithmic codes used to trade the markets.

James Lewis QC told the court Xu admitted "dishonestly accessing and
analysing his employer's trade secrets" and he had since "deliberately
disobeyed the court's order" to return the stolen code and computer.

"In this case they were trading strategies and he did so with a view to
making himself a very rich man by taking those secret strategies to rival
firms," said Lewis.

"He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, but in addition to the
prison sentence this court ordered him to cooperate with the police in the
return of those trading strategies and the computers he used to access his
employer's systems. He hasn't done so."

Xu resigned from Trenchant Trading Systems in August 2014, after growing
unhappy at receiving a bonus of £400,000 the previous year on top of his
£85,000 salary, as he believed he was entitled to a return north of £1m.

Following his resignation, he flew to Hong Kong carrying with him
confidential codes and sought to be hired from another financial services
firm, only to be arrested and extradited back to Britain in December 2014.

The 32-year-old was subsequently jailed seven months later after admitting
of committing fraud by abuse of position but, if found guilty of ignoring
the court's orders, he faces a longer sentence than the four years he is
currently serving.

Xu has rejected five counts of failing to comply with a Serious Crime
Prevention Order and insisted he never took copies of the codes. The court
was told he handed his computer to his family, before it was lost after his
parents' home was burgled.

Xu graduated with a first-class degree in maths from Cambridge University

"Mr Xu has tried to hang on to those secret trading strategies so they are
there for him when he is released from prison and returns to China," Lewis
told the court. "Mr Xu was ordered to tell the police where the copies of
Trenchant's trade secrets he made were and to hand those copies back and
also to hand over the related computer equipment."

Lewis added Xu had "completely failed to comply" with the court's order.
"He says he can't hand back copies of the trading strategies because he
never took copies," he added. "As for the computer equipment, he says he no
longer has it, claiming he handed it to family members in China."

The jurors would have to decided on the future of Xu, who graduated with a
first class degree in maths from Cambridge, Lewis argued. "Did Mr Xu keep
any copies of the company's secrets, namely those trading strategies in the
form of computer code?" he said.

"And secondly, does he have a reasonable excuse for not surrendering to the
police the computer equipment he had used to access the company's code?"

The trial continues.
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