Changwon Attorney | No Suspicion of Crime Finding in a Case of Trade Secret Leakage and Breach of Trust Involving a Former Employer

While working at the complainant's company, the clients found their conflict with the complainant intensifying.

The management of the complainant's company carried out unreasonable personnel measures while disregarding the employees' views, and a number of employees who opposed this decided to resign.

After the clients resigned, however, the complainant filed a complaint for trade secret leakage and occupational breach of trust on the ground that they had moved to a competitor.

The clients explained, however, that they had not resigned in order to move to a competitor, and they argued that they had instead become suspects as a result of the complainant's one-sided assertions.

While employed, the clients carried out a server migration at the complainant's instruction, and in the course of this work they used personal USB drives to temporarily store data.

This was purely a measure for performing their work, however, and at the time the complainant's company had no internal guideline prohibiting the use of personal USB drives.

After transferring all of the data to the server, they deleted and discarded the materials remaining on the personal USB drives.

They then decided to resign because of the internal conflict and the unreasonable personnel measures, and later, while engaged in a job search, they joined a competitor as regular employees after interviewing with its representative.

The competitor proceeded with the hiring solely on the basis of the clients' experience, and it never requested or made use of any trade secret.

As a result of the search and seizure conducted in connection with the charges of trade secret leakage and occupational breach of trust, not a single item of material related to the complainant's company was found at the client's current workplace.

In addition, during the investigation it was confirmed that the materials the complainant's company claimed to be trade secrets did not meet the legal requirements because they were managed with insufficient confidentiality measures.

The Changwon attorney identified these facts and pinpointed the issues.

① 🔗Trade Secret Leakage Question: The client downloaded the data through a proper procedure pursuant to work instructions, and completely deleted it after the work was finished, so there was no leakage.

② Whether the Materials Qualify as Trade Secrets: The materials the complainant's company claims do not meet the legal requirements for a trade secret (non-public nature, economic value, and confidentiality management).

③ Whether Occupational Breach of Trust Is Established: The client did not make use of the complainant's company's materials at the competitor, and the company the client moved to is planning a different project, so there is no reason to use the complainant's company's materials.

At the time of the server migration, it was a proper procedure for performing the work.

In addition, within the complainant's company there was no clear rule restricting the use of personal USB drives.

The attorney argued that the data used had been deleted and discarded immediately after the server migration, so that not a single item of material related to the complainant's company was found at the competitor during the prosecution's search and seizure.

To be recognized as a trade secret, the requirements of non-public nature, independent economic value, and confidentiality management must be satisfied, but the complainant's company's materials did not satisfy these requirements.

In addition, at the time of the server work the client was not properly aware of the contents of the downloaded data and could not know whether the materials were trade secrets.

Through this, the attorney established that there was no objective evidence that the complainant's company had protected the materials with substantial effort.

Because the client did not leak any trade secret, the offense of breach of trust likewise was not established.

In addition, the attorney argued that the client had not used the complainant's company's materials at the current company, and that the product under development was entirely unrelated to the work the client had handled at the complainant's company.