CFAA As A Self-Help Option

This article was originally published in the National Law Journal, March 10, 2008.

In october 2007, Oleksandr Dorozhko, a Ukrainian national operating from Ukraine, "hacked into the computer network of Thomson Financial" and "gained access to IMS Health’s soonto- be-released negative earnings announcement." Securities and Exchange Commission v. Dorozhko, No. 07 Civ. 9606, 2008 WL 126612, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 8, 2008). Armed with this nonpublic knowledge of the negative earnings announcement, Dorozhko used his newly opened Internet trading account at Interactive Brokers in Greenwich, Conn., to purchase put options in IMS Health stock prior to the release of the negative earnings announcement.