Teza Technologies

Teza Technologies LLC, a Chicago- based firm, said it suspended Sergey Aleynikov, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. computer programmer charged by U.S. prosecutors with stealing the bank’s trading technology. Aleynikov, 39, started at Teza on July 2, the day before he was arrested, the firm said in an e-mailed statement today. Teza, co-founded by Misha Malyshev, a former trader at hedge fund Citadel Investment Group LLC, said it first learned of the allegations on July 5 and suspended Aleynikov without pay following an investigation. The firm “was not aware of the alleged misconduct” and offered to cooperate with the government, according to the statement. James Margolin, a spokesman for the FBI’s New York Office, said the investigation is continuing.


Aleynikov was arrested after he arrived at Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey, prosecutors said. He told federal agents he intended to collect only “open source,” or non-secret, files on which he worked, prosecutors said. He admitted copying and encrypting the data, according to the government. His lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, said in a July 4 court appearance in Manhattan that the government’s allegations are “preposterous.” She said Aleynikov was downloading programs to his personal computer to work at home and hasn’t disseminated the code. Teza said in the statement that Aleynikov passed background checks before he was hired. The firm said he also indicated he wasn’t violating anyone’s intellectual property rights.

Before he left Citadel in February, Malyshev oversaw high- frequency trading at the Chicago-based hedge fund run by Kenneth Griffin. Teza said it is a “formative” firm that is neither trading nor investing. The firm, named after a river in western Russia, was also started by Jace Kohlmeier and Matt Hinerfeld. Prosecutors said that Aleynikov earned $400,000 a year at Goldman and indicated he would earn three times that salary by joining a new company and engaging in high-volume, automated trading. Teza declined to comment on Aleynikov’s compensation.