If it is determined that the employees of the company have leaked secrets, they will bear the following responsibilities:
1, civil liability for compensation
Generally speaking, if the disclosure of trade secrets causes loss of rights, the infringer shall be liable for compensation.
2. Administrative responsibility
If the trade secret is leaked, the obligee can complain to the administrative department for industry and commerce, and then the relevant department will impose fines and other penalties on the infringer according to the situation of leaking the secret.
3. Criminal responsibility
If the disclosure of business secrets causes serious losses to the obligee, he shall bear criminal responsibility according to the specific circumstances.
According to the law, he will bear the following criminal responsibilities:
(1) Whoever causes heavy losses to the obligee of trade secrets shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and shall also or only be fined;
If particularly serious consequences are caused to the obligee, he may be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and fined.
(2) Anyone who knows or should know the above-mentioned acts and obtains, uses or discloses other people's trade secrets shall be punished as the crime of infringing trade secrets.
Can liquidated damages be agreed in advance to prevent trade secrets from being leaked?
To determine whether to disclose trade secrets, we must first determine which ones belong to trade secrets. In practice, the so-called trade secrets have the following characteristics:
1, closed to the public.
The premise of trade secrets is that they are not known to the public, so the information disclosed in the company does not belong to trade secrets.
2. Others can master it later.
Trade secrets can make a company unique now, but as long as others have mastered them in the future, that is, others have obtained the trade secrets of the same content through legal means, then it cannot be said that the other party has violated the trade secrets, and they are actually in the same position as the first person.
3. Only competition can gain benefits.
The business secrets held by the company can make the company gain benefits, gain competitive advantages, or have potential business interests.
4. There is no clear protection period.
Trade secrets are different from patents, and there is no clear term of protection in law. If the person who owns the technical secret has effective security measures, and the application value of the technology itself will last for a long time.
Therefore, the company requires employees to sign a confidentiality agreement, which is actually a confidentiality measure.
However, if the company does not sign a confidentiality agreement with its employees when protecting trade secrets, then the trade secrets will be leaked, and it will also bear the tort liability for leaking trade secrets. However, if employees reveal business secrets and cause losses to the company, they can only solve it by claiming compensation afterwards. Generally, liquidated damages cannot be agreed in advance, nor can fines be demanded.
I hope the above content can help you. If in doubt, please consult a professional lawyer.
Legal basis:
Article 398 of the Criminal Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) * * * Any functionary of a state organ who intentionally or negligently divulges state secrets in violation of the provisions of the Law on Guarding State Secrets, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention; If the circumstances are especially serious, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years. Non-state employees who commit the crimes mentioned in the preceding paragraph shall be punished as appropriate in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph.