Ryan Baker Quoted by Bloomberg About Jane Street-Millennium Trade Secret Settlement

Partner Ryan Baker, speaking to Bloomberg on December 6, 2024 about the Jane Street-Millennium Trade Secrets settlement, said the law “contemplates formulas, methods or processes as trade secrets.” The key, said Baker, is to show that a trade secret holds “independent economic value from not being known” and has been protected.

At issue in a fight between two of Wall Street’s biggest names was whether a trading strategy used to build the Indian options business at Jane Street could be safeguarded as a trade secret. Many saw Jane Street’s strategy as seeking to use trade secret law as a surrogate for a non-compete agreement. While Baker agrees the ultimate outcome may be the same, the underlying policy interests are very different. “While the law favors an individual’s right to freely move between employers, no law permits an individual to take a former employer’s confidential intellectual property to a new employer.”