Legal skills

In terms of economics, and in an environment which is ever more competitive, with international behemoths bestriding every country in the world and offering multiple services and/or products, confidentiality becomes the priority: whether it be technical procedures, recipes, development strategies, client files, commercial action plans or the existence of economic difficulties, trade secrets and their protection are a central factor in a business’s survival.

For these businesses, the point is to preserve their competitive and industrial lead.

The law transposing directive 2016/943 (hereinafter referred to as the Trade Secrets Act) brings in a new general framework for the protection of trade secrets which is introduced into the commercial code.

It defines all the types of information likely to be protected, illegal conduct and the preventive measures which may be invoked under the law.

This framework came into effect with the publication of the French instrument “Décret n° 2018-1126”, dated 11 December 2018, relating to the protection of trade secrets.

Only businesses which have put “reasonable protection” in place at an early stage to keep their information secret can enforce their rights before the courts. Internal protective measures are essential in order to benefit from the Trade Secrets Act, since the new legal protection can be claimed only if evidence can be supplied of the existence of a specific mechanism to keep the information secret.

Businesses must thus take charge of their security policy in accordance with the nature of the information which they intend to protect.

To the extent that the acquisition of information has a cost (in particular, the time taken to collect it), such information has a value (maintaining a competitive advantage, the possibility of winning a market share, etc.), so setting up measures designed to protect trade secrets will allow a business to be valued for the “real” possession of an informational asset.

Our service consists in :

• Helping you to define your business’s informational assets
• Identifying how sensitive your informational assets are
• Defining the various protective measures requiring to be put in place to render your trade secrets enforceable and to allow you to benefit from the protection offered by the recent law on the subject.