INDIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Pravin Anand, Achuthan Sreekumar and Rohil Bansal, Anand and Anand
during the subsistence of their employment, they may be compelled to not engage in any other work or to not divulge the business/trade secrets of their employer to others, especially competitors. In such a case, a restraint order may be passed against an employee, as Section 27 of the Indian Contract Act is no bar in such a situation. However, routine day-to-day affairs of an employer that are commonly known to others cannot be called trade secrets. Trade secrets can be formulae, technical know-how or a pecu - liar mode or method of business adopted by an employer which is unknown to others. Nonetheless, the courts in John Richard v Chem - ical Process Equip and in Konrad Wiedemann v Standard Castings held that trade secrets are protected against misuse by any party who may have a relationship with the claimant, irrespec - tive of contract and based on the broad princi - ples of equity, whereby whoever has received information in confidence may not take unfair advantage of it. 7.4 Attorneys’ Fees If the claimant is successful in their suit, they may claim litigation costs, including attorney’s fees, and not just damages. Once the court concludes that the claimant is entitled to costs, it may ask the claimant to file a detailed memo of costs, and may then pass an order directing the defendant to pay such costs. 7.5 Costs Costs can include: • court fees; • attorney’s fees; • fees of expert witnesses/investigators;
• travel expenses; • fees of court commissioners; and • photocopying/postal expenses, etc.
In the event of the respondent proving that the claimant’s case is without any merit and was filed to harass the former, the court may award costs to the respondent for harassment and injury suffered. Section 35 of the Code of Civil Procedure gives courts the discretion to impose costs. Section 35A discusses compensatory costs in respect of false, vexatious claims or defences. The Supreme Court in the case of Uflex Ltd v Government of Tamil Nadu; [2021] 7 SCR 571 held that usually the judicial system hesitates to impose costs, presuming it to be a reflection on the counsel. In commercial matters costs must follow the cause. Therefore, in other words, the winning party should get the costs and the losing party should pay the costs. If the trade secrets case is filed before the Delhi High Court, the suit will be listed and heard by a single judge. An appeal from the order can be filed before the Appellate Division, comprising two judges (Division Bench). If any party is not satisfied with the order of the Division Bench, an appeal may lie before the Supreme Court of India. The time period for filing an appeal is 60 days, as per Section 13 of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015. Section 14 of the Act mentions that the appellate court should endeavour to dispose of appeals within a period of six months from 8. Appeal 8.1 Appellate Procedure
126 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook