The saga of former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov continues. As of now, he is scheduled to go on trial in November.

Aleynikov won a minor victory recently, when a judge dismissed one charge, that he illegally accessed a computer without permission. But this seems like a mere technicality. Obviously, he had permission to access the code.

The real issue is theft. And Aleynikov continues to face more serious charges--that he stole trade secrets and transported the stolen property across state lines.

Recall that Aleynikov, a former Goldman vice president, was charged with copying source code that was contained in a proprietary high-frequency trading system on his last day on the job in 2009.

He was said to have then transferred the code to a server in Germany and eventually sent the code to personal email, a laptop and other places. On July 2, he took the laptop and another storage device to his new employer, Teza Technologies. He was arrested by the FBI the very next day. He faces up to 25 years in prison.

This could be very interesting if it gets to trial. We may see a settlement, however, with a few years of jail time.

For more:
- here's a Reuters article

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