IKOS “thief” appears in Cyprus court

Vincent Pfister, the elusive IT expert charged with stealing software and data from Limassol-based fund manager IKOS, has appeared in court to hear seven charges of theft and fraud filed by the state.
He had been evading the authorities since April last year when the police filed the charge sheet in Limassol District Court. He failed to appear in court at least four times.
Limassol District Court Judge Yiota Kyprianides set the hearing date for May 21 and let Pfister free on a bail of 50,000 euros.
In a landmark case involving the protection of intellectual property rights that has shed light on the cloak-and-dagger intricacies of the high-speed trading world, Pfister has been charged with stealing proprietary software, source codes, data files, archives, as well as other information deemed confidential.
He was found to have stored the software and documents on a hard drive and later on a memory stick that was traced in a joint police sting involving officers in Cyprus, the U.K. and France.
In a related case, Pfister was accused of stealing the information in November 2009 with the intent of setting up a rival firm to IKOS in Monaco, which would be operated by IKOS founder Elena Ambrosiadou’s former husband, Martin Coward.