Review article
Criminal Law Protection of Business Secrets
Bruno Moslavac
; Općinsko državno odvjetništvo u Virovitici, Hrvatska
Abstract
Entrepreneurial concealed information is partially protected by criminal law and does not rely on the civil law protection of business secrets. The criminal offence of disclosing and the unauthorised acquisition of a trade secret is an economic criminal offence, but the initiative to seek criminal protection is entirely left to the holder’s free will.
The paper uses a descriptive analysis and statistical methods to determine the key elements of the criminal offence and the percentage of dismissed criminal charges, and an explicit analysis to clarify the modalities and stages of the offence, to determine whether the victims persist in criminal proceedings and whether they report the attempt of a criminal offence.
The results of the research show that the injured parties do not exaggerate in the assessment of the market or objective value of a trade secret that has become the object of a criminal offence, and that they predominantly fi le criminal charges for the basic form of the crime. In addition, perpetrators are reported solely for the completed offence and, relatively frequently, when the injured parties withdraw the motion for criminal prosecution, they prevent the fi nal conclusion of criminal proceedings, which depends entirely on their attitude.
In conclusion, the criminal offence of revealing and the unauthorised acquisition of a trade secret do not constitute a signifi cant share of the total number of economic crimes and, due to the fact that injured parties often give up the originally initiated criminal proceedings to protect the violated trade secret, criminal protection at the same time is not indispensable.
Keywords
parallel protection: business secret; completed offence; holder of a business secret; compensation of damages
Hrčak ID:
253354
URI
Publication date:
14.12.2020.
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