Corporate victims of trade secret theft may have an option they often overlook, says Stephen Byers of Crowell & Moring, and that’s to initiate criminal proceedings alongside civil suits. “In some cases, a criminal trade secrets theft investigation and prosecution may eliminate the need for costly civil litigation entirely,” he says.
Not all cases are appropriate for referral to law enforcement, says Byers. Generally, business disputes between two entities in which there was no malicious intent are not going to be put on the top of a busy prosecutor’s list of things to do. “But willful misconduct by a competitor or former employee, such as covert cyberintrusions, is a different story,” he says. Other factors that may tip a situation into criminal law territory include the magnitude of the theft, the sensitivity of the information and what means were used to obtain it.
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