Good point. No intelligent nerd is going to work for this suit ever after reading what happened and how he treated nerds who left the company.
Top quants make millions of dollars a year with bonus. He worked for Goldman Sachs for couple years before. Probably he has millions.
That would not be enforceable in any court of law. There is a limit in any non-confidentiality agreement that you sign and that only covers anything tangible and anything specific and unique and any past clients. It does not cover anything vague or general like "experience" otherwise nobody can advance their careers by working for other companies anymore. The guy is an a$$. I am not a lawyer but this is what I think. And it makes sense that they didn't succeed in their lawsuit against the other 5 guys.
The code he stole is obsolete now. It's worthless. How is he going to make "millions"? They are just keeping him behind to waste his life and waste his brain and let him out when he's got Alzheimer's just for stealing something that only lasts for 5 years.
Top quant PMs, maybe and even that is reasonably rare. This dude was a model developer at GS and a researcher at G-Research. If he has a million under his hame I'd be surprised. Not that a couple million dollars is "set of life" in the modern day and age.
In Tier 2 China even just the 400k GBP is enough to retire on comfortably. But as @hoffmanw points out, it wasn't his 1st gig so I'd peg his NW something higher. But say he wants to go to Shanghai, 100K USD equivalent startup cash and the IP if it still works, he is still set.
Don't know why he quit GS and don't know why he just left. I mean if he's got the brain, he can easily design new strategies in new firms. Why would he bother to copy others'?
The guy needs to find a new wife and have kids. I suspect like you hint he will find a good job or business opportunities back in China which will help a lot, but without that, a decent house/apartment and a car on his name, he would be a poor wanker in most advanced parts of China. And i doubt he would want to raise his kids in rural China. He doesn't look like in position to retire, nor should he even with more money in his pocket at his age. He must have lost quite a bit if not all of his savings through this legal battle if we are talking about a few 100ks anyway. Besides i'm quite surprised at how fast they managed to get a travel ban from HK because of a not very severe legal issue in the UK. The british company sure reacted swiftly and decisively. Impressive.
Then he should serve 5 years. This isn’t a gray area crime. He stole the codes and fled with the intent to use them for himself. Lock his ass up until the codes are no longer profitable
I don't know why he think he can get away with this. He think his boss is the kind of gentleman who would just play nice/play by the rules? His boss can easily ruin his life.