The Georgian Route for Trade Secret Theft
The misappropriation of trade secrets is not carved out as a separate offence in Georgian criminal law: the direct norm prohibiting unlawful appropriation of secrets sits in the competition law — in the prohibition of unfair competition, whose relevant clause forbids the obtaining, acquisition, use or dissemination of scientific-technical, production or commercial information or a commercial secret without the consent of its holder. That is the honest legal base on which a trade-secret theft page stands. A boundary should be noted too: the dedicated criminal trade-secret statutes of the United States system have no Georgian counterpart — the Georgian route is administrative and civil, running through competition law; a criminal qualification opens only where deception was used to obtain property or a right.
The Frame of Unfair Competition
The law lays down the general principle: unfair competition is impermissible. For the purposes of the article, unfair competition means an act of an economic agent which contradicts the norms of business ethics and infringes the interests of competitors and consumers. The list of prohibited forms is broad: transmitting information that creates a misleading impression for the consumer; concealing the true purpose of a transaction to mislead a party; disparaging and discrediting a competitor; imitating the form, packaging or appearance of a competitor's or third party's goods; bribing a purchaser; calling for a boycott — and, central to our subject, the acquisition, obtaining, use or dissemination of secret information without the holder's consent. This list serves both for qualifying a violation and for preventive construction: a company that sees a former employee or a competitor exploiting its client base or technology on the strength of secret data builds its position precisely on this norm.
What Acquisition Without Consent Means
The text of the norm contemplates four forms — acquisition, obtaining, use and dissemination — and each is a separately realisable act: receiving a secret is a violation even if the recipient has not yet used it, and dissemination may be committed by whoever passes it on to another. The practical significance for the defence concentrates on three questions: first, whether the information genuinely bore the character of a secret — was it actually protected and of commercial value; second, whether the holder's consent existed and within what limits; third, in which form the act was carried out. Finally, the dispute often runs along the boundary between the civil and administrative contours: competition law supplies the basis of the prohibition, while the compensation of damage is settled under the civil-law regime — which is why well-ordered documents, a trace of the secrecy regime and contractual restrictions are decisive even before a proceeding begins.
Preventive Construction: How the Boundary of Consent Stands
As is evident, the central element of the norm is the holder's consent, and it is exactly there that the practical questions are born. Consent may be expressed or may flow from a contract — from an employment, service or partnership relationship; but consent also creates limits: information handed to an employee for a specific assignment, and then used for another purpose and another benefit, will be assessed as overstepping the limit. A company's secrecy system must therefore be assembled with both ends finished: on the one hand, what we declare secret — the list, the grading, the access rules — because unprotected information loses the character of a secret; on the other, to whom and how we give access — contractual terms, restrictions and prohibitions of subsequent use. Between these two ends stands precisely the trace that is decisive on the day of the dispute: a company with a concretely and documentarily assembled secrecy regime easily proves the boundaries of the holder's consent; a company without that trace often builds its case not on the value of the disputed information but on a quarrel about whether it was secret at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below we answer the most common questions about trade secret misappropriation. The statutory list forms a single frame: prohibited are both the transmission through any means of communication of information creating a misconception in the consumer, and the concealment of the true purpose of a deal, the disparagement and groundless criticism of a competitor, the appropriation of the form or packaging of goods, the acquisition or dissemination of a commercial secret without the owner’s consent, the bribery of a person empowered to decide, and calls for a boycott. The defining test is twofold — the act must contradict business ethics and injure the interests of competitors and consumers.
Is there a separate criminal article for trade secret theft?
No — the direct prohibition is in the competition law: obtaining, acquiring, using or disseminating secret information without the holder's consent is unfair competition.
In what forms is the violation committed?
By acquisition, obtaining, use or dissemination — each a separately realisable form.
What must be proved in the dispute?
The secret character and commercial value of the information, the absence of the holder's consent, and the form of the act.
Can a criminal qualification arise?
Only where deception was used to obtain property or a right — such cases are assessed separately.
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