The Trade Secrets of Hedge Funds

Portfolio.com published an interesting piece recently concerning the increasing number of suits commenced to stop hedge fund employees from departing to work for a competitor. The article identifies state trade secrets law as a primary legal vehicle for getting injunctions against the departing employees.

Some of the hedge fund employees were responsible for generating proprietary trading models - ones that utilize mathematical formulas in their design. Our favorite quote from the piece? "There's nothing like a bunch of lawyers trying to figure out mean-variance optimization."

Interesting piece.