Goldman man in theft case

Sergey Aleynikov, 39, was arrested last week and yesterday saw his bail set at $750,000 (£461,000) over charges of “theft of trade secrets”.

Authorities have not yet confirmed that the theft was from Goldman, but Aleynikov’s lawyer issued a statement saying that his client had not planned to sell the information or to use it in a way “contrary to my employment agreement with Goldman Sachs”.

Aleynikov, a Russian living in New York, was arrested by FBI agents on Friday after landing at Newark Liberty International airport.

He was accused of stealing the codes, which are used in complex automated stock and commodities trading, but insists that he had only intended to download “open source” files and had accidentally included the secret codes.

Aleynikov, who earned $400,000 a year, worked at Goldman for a month between May 2007 and 5 June, when he left to join an automated trading firm, the FBI Said.

A preliminary hearing has been set for 3 August.