U.S. Counsels Cross-Border Consistency In Criminal Consequences For Trade Secret Theft

What do the laws of the United States, Peru and Australia have in common when it comes to imposing similar riminal penalties for trade secret misappropriation?  Virtually nothing!

In the U.S., criminal penalties for misappropriating trade secrets range from 10 to 15 years.  In Peru, the maximum criminal sentence for stealing trade secrets is 2 years.  And in Australia, there is no law expressly criminalizing trade secret theft.

These cross-border inconsistencies are significantly undercutting global efforts to deal with the ever-expanding problem of trade secret misappropriation.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has recently come out with a proposal intended to address this problem.

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