A special commercial secret protection law adopted in Latvia

In the era of rapid development of information technologies and manufacturing, constantly increasing investments in scientific researches and innovations, the issue of legal protection of commercial secrets (such as technologies, expertise and information) has become more essential than ever. In order to improve national regulatory enactments in this area, on 28 February 2019 Latvia’s Parliament adopted a special Law on the Protection of Commercial Secrets, the aim of which is to ensure effective protection of commercial secrecy, particularly against the unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of it by other persons. The new Law on the Protection of Commercial Secrets shall apply to any natural or legal person who has legal control over a commercial secret or who has unlawfully obtained, used or disclosed a commercial secret. The law determines what information is regarded as a commercial secret and how to proceed if it has been illegally placed at the disposal of other persons. The commercial secret’s object may be both technical information such as sketches, designs, prototyping, manufacturing processes, inventions which may or may not be patentable, and know-how, expressed in terms of technical, commercial, organizational knowledge, such as formulas or recipes, as well as commercial information, such as lists of customers and suppliers, models and strategy, pricing policy, including financial information of the merchant or other entity carrying out economic activity, etc. The acquisition, use or disclosure of a commercial secret or unauthorized access to information containing commercial secret without the permission of the holder of a commercial secret shall be considered a violation of the law. TRINITI team is at your service regarding the application of the new legal framework in Latvia, and represent you in pre-trial and court proceedings in order to ensure protection of commercial secrets.