Breach of confidence: limiting disclosure of information to public and business competitors and the consequences of revealing it by improper means / Jalilah Mohd Ali ... [et al.]

A trade secret is very essential in modern business competition. The trade secret need to be protected as it covers information and has very high demands in terms of commercial value. The method and technique used by businessman in protecting trade secret from being revealed to public domain and especially to competitors, is to be look into seriously. The present and establishment of the law of confidential information or trade secret is material to discourage industrial espionage by punishing the efforts of competing businesses to learn one another's proprietary information by improper means. Improper means of acquiring a trade secret might include infiltrating a competitor's production facility, stealing a competitor's documents and bribing a competitor's employees. However, trade secrecy law doesn't stop a competitor from "reverse engineering" a product sold on the open market, or from independently developing the secret. These are considered legitimate means of acquiring a competitor's business information or actual and anticipated unauthorized disclosure of information. Despite the prohibition of disclosure of trade secret, public interest can be raised as a defence. Although the principle is quite clear but there are some points need to be considered especially when it involves publication in media. Thus, this paper will examine the importance of the law of confidential information, how far employees and competitors can develop the information that is categorized under trade secret or highly confidential in the context of equitable and contractual obligations, the extent of which the defence of public interest is applicable and the sufficiency of remedies awarded by the Court to uphold justice to the proprietor of the information.