The Supreme Court of the United States held on January 25, 2016, that an executive of a shipping company who hacked into his former employer’s computer system after he left the company was guilty under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), despite the fact that the jury instructions were faulty.

The executive left his former employer and accessed confidential information of his former employer after he left his employment. The former employer settled its civil claims against the executive for $10 million, but he was then prosecuted for criminal violations of CFAA.

After he was convicted, he appealed arguing that the jury instructions were improper. SCOTUS rejected his argument, particularly because the defendant “did not dispute that we was properly charged with conspiracy to obtain unauthorized access or that the evidence was sufficient to convict him of the charged crime…”

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