New York-based hedge fund Elliot Associates filed suit today against Cedar Hill Capital Partners, claiming Cedar schemed to “literally steal [proprietary] software in order to use it for its own trading activities,” an act Elliot deems “nothing short…of corporate espionage.” The software in question is used to analyze fixed-income securities for trading CDOs, and according to the firm, took upwards of two years and millions of dollars to develop. Shed some light time: Elliot manages around $10 billion so it wouldn’t be so far fetched to think Cedar Hill might want some of that. Then again, the firm is run by Paul Singer, who a quasi-reliable source tells DealBreaker is “John Nash-paranoid.” (Who isn’t?)
(It’s times like these that I can’t help but thinking since it’s sort of a fact that at least half of you snakes are going to pull these stunts anyway, why not level the playing field from the start and just say, “Anything goes,” like Ultimate Fighting and whatnot? Then we could spend less time having these petty little arguments and more time trying to guess how many phone books Adam Sender has to sit on to clear the dashboard-- standard Price Is Right rules apply.)
Elliott Sues Cedar Hill For Spying, Stealing [FINalternatives]
Accused Aussie Rate-Rigger Walked Colleagues Through Pros/Cons Of Rigging Rate
Conclusion: "F*ck it."
Let's Get One Thing Straight: Ken Griffin Only Accuses People Of Attempting to Gain A Competitive Advantage By Gaining Access To Proprietary Trading Strategies-- He Does Not Get Accused!
Back in October, a former Citadel employee, Yihao “Ben” Pu, was arrested and charged with "stealing trade secrets" from Ken Griffin (by "copying company data onto a removable storage device," and then attempting to sell it to Teza Technologies AKA the firm a bunch of ex-Citadel guys tried to join in 2009 before being sued for doing so by Griffin, as well as the the shop a former Goldman programmer, Sergey Aleynikov, went to jail for after giving it proprietary GS code). Now, because apparently people just can't help themselves, KG has been forced to levy another allegation of theft against some former employees who he believes took a piece of his property when they left for high-frequency trading firm Jump Trading. Does Griffin have actual evidence that they swindled him? No, not exactly. But he's got a hunch, and that hunch is based on the fact that since 2005, when people from Citadel's "tactical trading group" started leaving for Jump, "some of the strategies" employed by the TTG "have become less profitable" and are "behaving in a way consistent with their having been copied by rivals." So what KG would like a court to do is force Jump to turn over "personnel documents, strategy and trading records, and source code," which will prove him right and the Citadel defectors to be the plunderers he knows they are. Evidence in hand, Griffin will then sue Jump and everyone named Ken Griffin will go home happy. The only issue that needs to be worked out is Jump Trading's cooperation, which so far is proving difficult to obtain. In fact, the firm is being downright unhelpful and not only that? Its legal team has accused Griffy-boy of being the thief, or at least trying to be. That's right: the way JT sees it, Citadel's new profitable algorithm development system is a two-step process that goes something like this: Step 1: Steal successful algorithms from rival firm. Step 2: Use them. In its response filing, Jump said that Citadel had no evidence that the algorithms had become less profitable because of any of Jump's actions. It said that any of the hundreds of other algorithmic trading firms could be at fault. "The petition is nothing more than a transparent attempt by Citadel to obtain a competitive advantage by gaining access to Jump's proprietary and confidential trading strategies," Jump's motion said. Your move, KG. Citadel Accuses Jump Employees Of Stealing Secrets [Reuters]