Industrial Espionage

[Kez]

Howdy smart people,

What laws would someone be breaking in commiting the act of Industrial Espionage (Theft of trade secrets, Industrial Sabotage (Bar tresspassing/arson/theft, e.t.c) or any other related acts?

A client and I were talking over lunch the other day and we struck up a discussion about information theft, one thing lead to another, and then we have both been looking around about industrial espionage laws/safeguards within Australia.

After thinking it over, the only things I could think of, and the laws they broke are Illegal wiretaps / Email monitoring (Privacy act), and Theft of Intellectual Property (Breaking of IP laws?)

Anyone able to assist, or point me in the right direction where to look for anything else (Bar this (http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/ti106.pdf))?

[Furball]

For some reason, something is telling me fraud is also applicable. Its fraudulant behaviour. But im no lawyer either... interesting to see where this goes...

[ShinymetalASS]

Breach of Contract (employment), which, depending on the company and the nature of the information could see a sizable claim in damages. Also depending on the position of the person within the company, there could be criminal charges.

Other than that, you're getting outside my area of experience. Got anything on tax/property/leases/contracts, etc etc etc ??

[slaine1]

This is quite up my alley (I lurve equity, but then again, I'm wierd).

Quite apart from any contractual claims involved, there is an action in equity known as breach of confidence which covers the appropriation of trade secrets (aka confidential information). The jurisdiction in equity arises because a court of equity will not allow a party to take advantage of information gained in circumstances where it offends the conscience to do so. Equity exercises its jurisdiction against the person who offends conscience to prevent him from benefiting from his unconscientious conduct. The key requirement for equity to exercise its jurisdiction is the unconscientious nature of the conduct.

So what constitutes unconscientious conduct? In the case of Coco v AN Clark (Engineers) Ltd, Megarry J suggested that three things are normally required for a successful action of breach of confidence:

1. information with the necessary quality of confidence about it;
2. is imparted in circumstances involving an obligation of confidence; and
3. an unauthorised use is made of the information to the detriment of the party communicating it.

In relation to trade secrets, see Seager v Copydex, Coco v AN Clark, and Maggbury (a High Court case, which basically says that where the relationship of confidence is created by contract, anything you agree is confidential, _is_ by definition, confidential, regardless of whether the information is _in fact_ confidential).

I believe there has even been a case where a person took pictures in the air of a complainant's manufacturing facilities, and that was considered a breach of confidence (but I could be wrong on that).

Hope that helps.

I find it hard to think of examples of industrial sabotage that does not constitute theft, trespass or arson, so can u provide a concrete example and I'll try to help.

Disclaimer: IANAL (yet); not meant to be legal advice; rely on your own peril.