Recent Developments in Commercial Confidentiality
Media and Arts Law Review, 2010
10 Pages Posted: 16 May 2014
Date Written: 2010
Abstract
This paper will address two European developments relating to commercial confidentiality. The first deals with the overlap or interface between commercial confidentiality and privacy, as illustrated by the European Court of Justice (‘ECJ’) decision in Varec SA v Belgium (‘Varec’), which held that protection of business secrets comes within the scope of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’). The second relates to ‘traditional’ breach of confidence principles, in particular the problematical ‘springboard doctrine’, and the attempt by Mr Justice Arnold to clarify this doctrine in Vestergaard Frandsen A/S v Bestnet Europe Ltd (‘Vestergaard’).
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