City Of London
Quant Fund Sues a ‘Special’ Trader Leaving for Rival With its Algo’s Secrets
- Jump Trading demands court impose two year job restrictions
- Non-compete clause is too wide, unenforceable: Verition Fund
Photographer: Jordan Sirek/Bloomberg
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A quant fund sued a “special” trader in London to prevent him from joining a rival firm too soon, to protect secrets that are the “lifeblood of its business” and worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Allowing Damien Couture, who left Jump Trading Group in March last year, to leave the firm to join a hedge fund risks “abuse of confidential information” and “once the cat is out of the bag there is no stopping” him, James Laddie, a lawyer for Jump said in the UK High Court on Friday. He should be blocked from joining Verition Fund Management until April 2024, he argued.