Want to Protect Your Trade Secrets? Update Your Employment Agreements
In order to preserve the right to seek punitive damages and attorney fees from an employee or former employee who has misappropriated trade secrets, the employer must have provided notice of the whistleblower-protection provisions of the Defend Trade Secrets Act.
“Notice of the whistle-blower protection provisions must be included ‘in any contract or agreement with an employee that governs the use of a trade secret or other confidential information,’” explains author Anthony George in the article on the website of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.
He advises employers to include the DTSA whistleblower-protection provision, or to amend existing contracts if necessary.
