What is a trade secret: signs of information and punishment for disclosure

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Some of the factors of entrepreneurial activity allow you to increase profitability, remain competitive and avoid losses. In this regard, some of the information of the company, which is a trade secret, may be subject to concealment.

At the level of legislation, there is a clear list of information that an enterprise has the right to hide and which should be open.

Categories and types

There is trade secret information, which, if it suddenly becomes public, can lead to catastrophic consequences, and there is information that will only slightly affect the state of the enterprise. In light of this, several categories of secrecy are distinguished.

• Highest Degree: Information the disclosure of which could lead to bankruptcy of the organization.
• Strictly confidential: strategic and long-term development plans, that is, the disclosure of such information will lead to significant economic losses.
• Confidential information: disclosing it will in the extreme case lead to expenses that can betreat as current.
• Restricted Information: Salary, Job Description, and Management Structure. Disclosure of such information is usually not followed by financial expenses.
• Public information: information that is available to anyone and does not pose any danger to business.

What information is protected?

What information is a trade secret and is not subject to disclosure? First of all, this is information that falls under the category of scientific and technical documentation. It can be a unique recipe, special ways of processing materials, drawings and diagrams, software, access to this information.

The second category of information is business and financial documents. This is the cost of production and purchases, financial and accounting reports, information on profits and long-term plans. It is also recommended to include information on sales volumes, on customers and suppliers, information obtained as a result of business correspondence and data on the competitive advantages of the enterprise.

It should also be remembered that, according to Federal Law No. 152, it is impossible to disclose information that contains information about the level of income of an employee, unless he himself gives his consent.

How is information not subject to concealment?

Documents with signs not related to commercial secrets are fully spelled out at the level of legislation in the Federal Law "On Commercial Secrets". First of all, these are financial and accounting reports,which are transferred to state bodies to determine the tax base or as confirmation of the solvency of the enterprise. You can not hide information about the number of employees, their working conditions, safety and wages.

By the way, constituent documents do not belong to a trade secret, including information about the availability of certificates and patents, licenses.

No antitrust violations or products sold or manufactured by an organization that may be harmful to the he alth of the consumer are subject to disclosure.

Good and bad sides

Documents related to trade secrets are not subject to state registration, so there is no need to disclose this information. That is, there is no need to worry that some official will sell this information to a competitor.

On the other hand, hidden information can be obtained by third parties by criminal means. There may even be a situation where a competing firm patents a certain recipe that is very similar to yours, and thereby becomes the rightful owner of this information. In this case, even if the entrepreneur knows that the information was stolen, he is unlikely to be able to prove it.

Won't protect the law from reverse engineering either. That is, situations when a competitor specifically studies the products of a businessman in order to reproduce a similar product at its facilities in the future.

Protection measures

Tothe information of the enterprise fell under the category of that which belongs to a trade secret, a businessman will need to carry out a number of activities within his structure.

You should start by drafting a trade secret regime document. This may be a “Regulation”, which will clearly spell out all the information that is and is not subject to the secrecy regime. To do this, you will have to hire a special person or impute these duties to one of the employees. All documents included in this list must be marked "Secret" or "Commercial secret".

Employees who will directly work with documents containing secrets must sign a non-disclosure agreement or agreement. The contract of employment must also contain an appropriate note that the employee is notified of the responsibility.

Agreement

At the level of legislation, there is no document that an employee must sign before working with documents that are classified as trade secrets. But business practice has already established certain requirements.

At the beginning of the document, after its title, there should be an introductory part, where the place and date of the document, details of the parties (employer and employee) should be displayed. Next, describe the subject of the agreement, that is, how the employee should interact with information containing commercial secrets.

After that, the obligations of both parties to the agreement and responsibility are prescribed. General information is provided at the end of the document.provisions, details and signatures of the parties.

How to store

In addition to the fact that the entrepreneur must implement a document management scheme within his enterprise, a separate safe with a limited number of keys should be allocated for storing documents that fall under the secrecy regime. A record of each case of requesting documents should also be made. You can provide a special place where employees will work with this documentation.

Constituent documents do not belong to trade secrets, therefore they should not be kept together with secret papers, as they can be requested at any time by third parties or government officials.

Responsibility for Disclosure

In addition to the direct transfer of secret information from the employee to third parties, the employee's inaction, which led to the disclosure, is liable.

Before you decide what to do with the delinquent employee, you should find out how the information was leaked. Perhaps she was unintentional, but simply a computer system was hacked.

But more often than not, the leak occurs for selfish reasons, in particular:

• if competitors approached the employee and promised a reward for certain information;
• the employee himself decided to use the information to open his personal business;
• it happens that the worker is an ordinary braggart and does not know how to keep his mouth shut.

Resigned employees should remember that they are not allowed to disclose information even after they leave.

For the leakage of information, which is a trade secret, the following types of liability are provided.

• Disciplinary. Perhaps this is the measure that scares people the least, as it can be in the form of a reprimand, remark or dismissal.
• Material. If it is proved that the employee's actions caused material damage to the enterprise, then most likely it will have to be compensated.
• Administrative. This type of liability is prescribed by law, and the amount of the fine depends on the position. For an ordinary employee, the amount of the pen alty cannot exceed 1,000 rubles, and for a manager - 5,000 rubles.

The law also provides for criminal liability for causing especially grave consequences for the enterprise by one's actions. This may be a fine, but up to 200 thousand rubles, or forced labor and even a "voucher" to prison for up to 7 years.

The most important thing, when taking the first steps to preserve trade secrets in your enterprise, is to notify all employees about it. And of course, choose your shots more carefully so that you don't regret your choice in the future.