Uh, also, don’t steal?

>At around that time, de Putron got involved in another legal dispute that foreshadowed his companies’ campaign against Xu. The year before, a group of five programmers and managers had left G-Research, then known as GR Software & Research Ltd., to start their own trading outfit. The company responded by first threatening a lawsuit, then, in 2011, by filing one. None of the filings suggested anything had been stolen, but G-Research argued that the five had developed their quant-trading skills at the company, and so any new platform would have to be similar and an infringement of its intellectual property.

Intellectual property contracts are common in finance. I had a clause that, if enforced, would have prevented me to work for two years in the industry, while offering half my usual salary in the meantime. I think it's fair (doesn't hold you off forever and also doesn't starve you while you're out of the game). In my case, it wasn't enforced when I left (which is more bad news for me than good, since it just means I wasn't valuable enough :)

The article says they even sued former employees (that were not accused of stealing) for simply having the audacity to start a company in the same field.

The former employees group didn't steal shit and still got lawyers up their ass the whole time.