3 are charged with stealing trading data

[August 27, 2013]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Two former employees of Flow Traders, an electronic trading company, were charged Monday in New York with stealing secret data and computer codes from the company to help start their own business.

Jason Vuu, who worked at Flow Traders until March, emailed himself the company's files seven times between August 2011 and August 2012, the complaint said. On three other occasions this month, Vuu emailed himself codes that are used by Flow Traders to structure and execute its trades, the complaint said.

Vuu renamed the files of his email attachments to make it harder to identify what they were, according to the complaint.

Vuu was charged with nine counts of unlawful duplication of computer related material and 11 counts of unauthorized use of secret scientific material.

Glen Cressman, who worked at Flow Trader in December 2012, emailed himself the company's trading strategies and algorithms from his work email account to a personal one, according to the complaint. The complaint also said that in one instance the file was sent from a co-worker's email account to Cressman's personal email account, but the co-worker was not at work that day. Cressman was charged with two counts each of the same charges.

A third person, Simon Lu, who did not work at Flow Traders, accessed the company's source code from Dropbox, a data storage website. The complaint said that the source code was uploaded by Vuu. Prosecutors said that Lu asked Vuu in online chats if he had access to Flow Traders' source code and other data, saying that the information could help them start their own trading business. Lu was charged with three counts each of the same charges.

Lu's attorney, Paul Shechtman, said: "I believe the evidence will show that Simon never used source code from Flow Traders. We've asked the district attorney's office to keep an open mind as this moves forward."

Charles Ross, an attorney for Cressman, and Jeremy Saland, Vuu's attorney, did not return requests for comment. Flow Traders, which is headquartered in Amsterdam but has trading offices in New York, did not return a request for comment.

The complaint said that each of the files taken from Flow Traders were worth over $2,500.

The complaints were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

[Associated Press]

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