international employment law firm alliance L&E Global
Sweden

Sweden: Revised proposal for a new act on trade secrets suggests further liability when an employee acquire unauthorized access to a trade secret

The proposed changes to Swedish legislation are necessary to implement an EU directive on the protection of trade secrets. The revised proposal, inter alia, suggests that an employee shall be liable for damages if the employee acquires unauthorized access to trade secrets to which the employee otherwise have lawful access due to employment or other similar grounds, for example by copying the employer’s trade secrets to his/her personal storage space. An employee’s attack on the employer’s trade secrets is thus proposed to include acts of transferring trade secrets from the workplace, e.g. by downloading or copying, and it will not be required that the employee actually uses or reveals the trade secrets, which is the case today.

The revised proposal on a new act on the protection of trade secrets no longer includes further criminal liability for employees who attack a trade secret to which they have lawful access due to employment or other such grounds.