INDIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Pravin Anand, Achuthan Sreekumar and Rohil Bansal, Anand and Anand
set out in 9.1 Prosecution Process, Penalties and Defences .
• Dolby International v GDN Enterprises [CS (Comm) 1425/2016]. Relying on the above judgments, the Delhi High Court passed an order in Ericsson (Publ) v Xiaomi Technology to the effect that “the rea- son probably is, in today’s world of globalisation, where competition is at its peak, organisations may not be inclined to disclose trade secrets/ confidential agreements or their details they had entered [into] with different parties lest [this] may cause serious prejudice to such parties because of competition involved” . The Delhi High Court (Original Side) Rules, 2018 introduced a rule on “confidentiality clubs” , under Chapter VII Rule 17. Further, the Delhi High Court Intellectual Property Rights Division Rules, 2021, Section 19 also deals in Confidentiality clubs and redaction of confidential information, and states that at any stage in any proceeding the Court may constitute a confidentiality club for the preservation and exchange of confiden - tial information and documents filed before the Court. 3.2 Exit Interviews The manner of conducting exit interviews will vary across industries and across hierarchy. However, highlights would include the following: • the departing employee shall not part with the confidential information they may have received during the employment; • they ought not have in their power or pos - session any company property that may be tangible or intangible; and • they may be required to sign a non-compete agreement, by virtue of which they would agree to not engage in a competing business by themselves or join any other person who engages in such competing business.
3. Preventing Trade Secret Misappropriation 3.1 Best Practices for Safeguarding Trade Secrets In transactions involving trade secrets, the owner of such information can take the following steps to ensure that their interests are safeguarded: • inform the recipient that the information is confidential in nature and that the giver has all proprietary rights to said information; • expressly inform that confidentiality of the information should be maintained at all times and that it should not be divulged to any third party without the consent of the giver; and • clearly inform that, if the information is leaked, immense prejudice and harm will be caused to the giver. Further, in cases where confidential information is involved, parties can form a confidentiality club by making a request to the court that con - fidential documents should only be accessible to members who are part of the club, and such members should undertake not to disclose or misuse such documents or information. The concept of confidentiality clubs has been dis - cussed and upheld in various cases, such as: • Pfizer v Unimark Remedies, order dated 4 May 2016 in Misc Petition (L) No 56 of 2016; • Sivasamy v M/s Vestergaard A/S [FAO (OS) 206/2009]; • Mvf3 v Sivasamy [CS(OS) 599/2007] in IA No 10268/2009, CS (OS) No 599/2007; • Roche v DCGI [CS (OS) 355/2014]; and
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