Goldman Sachs Just Says 'Vice President' to Be Polite

My basic view of Sergey Aleynikov -- the former Goldman Sachs programmer who left for a high-frequency trading firm, took some code on his way out the door, was arrested by the FBI at Goldman's instigation, was convicted of theft and sentenced to eight years in prison, was released after about a year when an appeals court ruled that he hadn't committed a crime, and was then charged with the theft again in state court just out of prosecutorial spite1 -- is that Goldman has been unnecessarily mean to him and that the very least it can do would be to pay his (more than $2.3 million!) legal bills for the absurd criminal cases it put him through.

Goldman's view differs. So Aleynikov sued the firm for the money, on the theory that Goldman's bylaws require it to indemnify its officers for their legal expenses, and that he was an officer of Goldman Sachs. After all, he was a vice president, and "vice president" sure sounds like it means "officer." No one would argue that Joe Biden is not an officer of the U.S. government. Goldman's theory, on the other hand, is that "vice president" is a "courtesy title" handed out to roughly one-third of its employees, and of course they're not all officers. Aleynikov persuaded a trial court that he was right, but yesterday a federal appeals court overturned that ruling and, amazingly, sent the case back for a jury trial on whether Goldman Sachs's vice presidents are officers.