New York State, after failing to keep pace with technological change and increasingly sophisticated economic crimes, needs to update its laws to help authorities prosecute white-collar wrongdoing, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr.
In the 112-page report, a white-collar crime task force made a number of proposals, including strengthening the laws against identity theft and the stealing of computer code.
New York’s penal laws have changed little since 1965, Mr. Vance said, leaving laws against electronic crimes outmoded. Mr. Vance and federal prosecutors in Manhattan have made the prosecution of corporate espionage and high-tech theft a top priority.
“The Internet has become our 21st-century crime scene,†Mr. Vance said at the Center for the Administration of Criminal Law at New York University, where he unveiled the report. “Serious computer and related crimes are not today treated according to the gravity and breadth of the harm caused.â€
Mr. Vance’s office is prosecuting Sergey Aleynikov, a former programmer at Goldman Sachs accused of stealing secret code from the bank. Mr. Aleynikov, who has denied the accusations, was charged in state court less than six months after a federal appeals court overturned his conviction on federal criminal charges related to the same crime.
Also on Tuesday, Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, discussed his office’s actions to prevent high-frequency traders from getting advance looks at potentially market-moving information.
Speaking at the Bloomberg Markets 50 Summit in New York, Mr. Schneiderman criticized the data provider Thomson Reuters for allowing customers to pay it a premium to obtain early the results of the influential University of Michigan consumer confidence survey.
Calling the practice “Insider Trading 2.0,†he said that those types of arrangements were “far more insidious than traditional insider trading.â€
The New York State task force focused on more than just insider trading, examining a range of white-collar crime like fraud aimed at the elderly, tax fraud and counterfeiting. It proposed changes to enhance money laundering laws, such as criminalizing the structuring of cash transactions to avoid a reporting requirement.
Formed in October, the task force was led by the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York and co-headed by Daniel R. Alonso, the chief assistant district attorney in Manhattan.
A group of prominent white-collar criminal defense lawyers worked on the report, including David B. Anders of Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, Steven M. Cohen of Zuckerman Spaeder and Karen Patton Seymour of Sullivan & Cromwell. The task force will present the recommendations to the Legislature and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
“These new breeds of white-collar crime have victimized individuals, businesses, and government entities alike,†said the report. “Despite its multifarious forms, all modern white-collar crime in New York shares one feature: it costs our taxpayers dearly.â€
William Alden contributed reporting.
