Prosecutors Request Closed Courtroom in Goldman Sachs Trade Secrets Theft Case

United States Attorneys prosecuting the case of a software programmer accused of stealing high-frequency stock trading software code from Goldman Sachs, are asking the judge to seal the courtroom in order to protect the company's trade secrets.

The defendant, Sergey Aleynikov, 40, originally from Russia, worked on creating a high-speed stock trading software platform for Goldman Sachs from May 2007 to June 2009.

He then accepted a job offer from Chicago-based Teza Technologies, a company looking to enter the high-frequency trading market, which offered him three times more money to develop similar software for them.

According to the authorities, during his final days at Goldman Sachs, Aleynikov uploaded 32 MB-worth of source code belonging to the company, to a server in Germany.

The programmer admitted to doing it, but claimed that he only intended to copy open source code used in the project and that he included additional files accidentally.

He also noted that no one else saw the proprietary code and that he didn't intend to use it at his new job, because his contract prohibited the use of unlicensed software.

The prosecutors wrote in their motion that, in order "To allow both parties to present […] evidence without compromising the confidentiality of […] trade secrets, the Government respectfully requests that the Court enter a narrowly-tailored order requiring that:

"Any trial exhibits describing or containing the victim's trade secrets be sealed, that is, be shown to the Court, the parties, and to the jury, but not to the public, and that thereafter they be filed under seal, if there is a need for them to be submitted to the Court;

"That the courtroom be closed to members of the public (except counsel for the victim or other representatives of the victim) during any portion of witness testimony or attorney argument that addresses, other than at a high level of generality, the nature of the victim's trade secrets, and that the transcripts corresponding to those portions of the testimony be sealed as well."

According to Wired, prosecutors also asked the court to exclude from the trial information about funds received by Goldman Sachs through the government's bank bailout program, the company's bonus pool, its employees' salaries and other information considered not relevant to the case.