On Thursday, February 28, the Saeima supported the new Commercial Secret Protection Law and related amendments to the Civil Procedure Law, developed by the Ministry of Justice, in the third reading. The purpose of the Law is to ensure effective protection of the commercial secret, in particular against unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure thereof.
The Law defines that the commercial secret means a non-disclosable information of commercial nature, technological knowledge and scientific or other kind of information, corresponding with all such signs - it is secret, as it is not generally known or available to persons, who usually use such information, it has actual or potential commercial value, as well as the holder of the commercial secret has performed the relevant measures for preservation of confidentiality thereof.
In the annotation of the draft law the authors thereof note that an object of the commercial secret may include such technical information as sketches, designs, prototypes, production processes, inventions, as well as know-how - technical, commercial, organisational knowledge, such as formulas or recipes, - and commercial information, such as lists of customers and suppliers, business models and strategy, pricing policy.
The new Law stipulates that a holder of the commercial secret may be any natural or legal person, who has lawfully acquired the commercial secret and is being entitled to manage (control) it, including to use and disclose.
Besides, the Law stipulates what shall not be considered as a commercial secret, as well as the forms in which the acquisition of the commercial secret is to be considered lawful and in which the acquisition, use and disclosure thereof is unlawful.
The Law regulates also the applicable remedies for infringements of the commercial secret law. It will be possible to raise a claim against the person, who has unlawfully acquired, used or disclosed the commercial secret, within a time period of three years from the day, when the holder of the commercial secret becomes aware of it or should have become aware of unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of the commercial secret.
The draft Law is developed in order to adopt the requirements provided for in the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure.