---
title: "Trade Secret Theft"
url: "https://legal.ge/en/service/crim-criminal-law-en/trade-secret-theft-en"
field: "Criminal Law"
description: "Trade secret theft in Georgia: the prohibition through competition law, from acquisition to disclosure. Legal.ge."
reviewed: "2026-07-09"
updated: "2026-11-07"
publisher: "legal.ge"
---

# Trade Secret Theft

> Source: legal.ge, https://legal.ge/en/service/crim-criminal-law-en/trade-secret-theft-en

## 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.

The full text is available on legal.ge after signing in: https://legal.ge/en/service/crim-criminal-law-en/trade-secret-theft-en

### Is trade secret theft a separate crime?

No — it is prohibited through the ban on unfair competition.

### In what forms?

Acquisition, obtaining, use or dissemination without consent.

### What to prove?

The secret character, the value and the absence of consent.