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Trading titans Jane Street and Millennium Management have settled a trade secrets lawsuit over allegations of a stolen trading strategy.
The parties said in a court filing on Thursday that the case had been dismissed. Millennium confirmed a settlement had been reached but declined to comment on the details. A Jane Street spokesperson said the case had been “resolved on mutually agreeable terms”.
The case, brought by Jane Street in April, was a rare instance of a public spat between two highly private firms whose use of cutting-edge trading technology has shaken up the old order on Wall Street. At one point in the case Jane Street asked that a hearing be closed to the public and the media, a request the judge dismissed as “borderline frivolous”.
The spat also comes as theft of trade secrets suits risk becoming more common in finance as investors and traders increasingly rely on complex technology, algorithms and artificial intelligence to generate profits.
Jane Street alleged two ex-employees, who moved to Millenium earlier in the year, took a “highly valuable, unique and proprietary” trading strategy with them when they left.
The strategy centred on Indian options markets. Jane Street initially sought — but failed to win — a restraining order against Millennium’s use of the strategy. More recently, the court spat centred on how the trading firm could prove it had suffered irreparable harm.
Trading at Jane Street, known for its prowess in exchange traded funds and corporate bonds, netted more than $8bn of revenue In the first six months of 2024, the Financial Times has reported previously.
Millennium, founded by Izzy Englander in 1989, is one of the largest multi-manager hedge funds in the world, with more than $60bn in assets under management.
Both employees named in the suit, Douglas Schadewald and Daniel Spottiswood, are still employed as traders by Millennium, according to one source.
