Law No. (7) for 2003 with Respect to Trade Secrets
01-Jul-2003
His Majesty Hamed Bin Eisa Al- Khaleefa, the King of Bahrain, has issued Law No. (7) for 2003 with Respect to Trade Secrets on the 14th of June 2003. The Advisory Council and the Council of Ministers have approved the Law and it was considered effective as of the next day of its publication date in the Official Gazette.
The Law mentioned that undisclosed information shall be protected. This is conditional upon the fact that such information is secret. In other words, this means that it is generally unknown and it is not readily accessible or has commercial value.
The Law indicated that the following acts would be considered contrary to legal commercial practices:
• Disclosure by one of the contractual parties to “secrecy of information contract". Meaning divulging the information that came to this party’s knowledge and is related to the contract.
• Instigation of the workers to disclose information.
• Obtaining information by any unlawful manner such as fraudulence, espionage, larceny or bribe or otherwise.
• Third parties' usage of information obtained by adopting any of the acts mentioned above. This is conditional upon the third party being aware of the secrecy of the information, and of this information being obtained by any of the acts mentioned above.
The Law stated that the penalties according to the provisions of the Law, will be imposed upon any person who willingly and unlawfully discloses, acquires, or uses protected and secret information. Such penalties shall be imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year and not less than 3 months. This is in addition, to a fine not exceeding BD 2000 and not less than BD 500. Court decisions may combine both penalties.
AGIP / Bahrain