A former Goldman Sachs employee has been arrested by the FBI and freed on bail over accusations that he stole secret trading codes from the US bank.

Sergey Aleynikov, 39, was arrested by the FBI on Friday and charged with the theft of trade secrets from his former employer.

Mr Aleynikov met the terms of his $750,000 (£465,000) bail and was released yesterday, said a spokesman for the FBI.

Mr Aleynikov's lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, said at court proceedings on Saturday that her client told authorities after his arrest that he did not intend to sell the information or use it “contrary to my employment agreement with Goldman Sachs.”

Mr Aleynikov, a Russian immigrant living in New Jersey, was arrested on Friday night as he got off a flight at Newark Liberty International Airport, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.

The affadavit alleges that Mr Aleynikov dowloaded the codes after receiving a job offer from another company in the days leading up to his departure from Goldmans on June 5. The authorities contend that Mr Aleynikov, who earned $400,000 a year at the bank, stole codes used for sophisticated automated stock and commodities trading.

Mr Aleynikov said he had intended to download only "open source" files on which he had worked, and had not handed over any codes to his new employer.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for August 3.

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