Damages for trade secret theft are often too low to deter wrongful activity. “Steal a television, you can get five years. But steal $300 million of production techniques, you can get maybe a year,” said Gary Kuo at Winkler & Partners in Taipei.
Companies also find it difficult to get the proof they need to prove their claims.
“Taiwan, like other civil law jurisdictions, doesn’t have discovery procedures,” explained Kuo. “As the plaintiff in a civil case, you have to prove everything yourself.”
The proposed amendment to the Trade Secret Act addresses some of these concerns. It calls for criminal penalties of up to NT$10 million ($341,096) both against the individual and the company receiving the trade secrets, and statutory damages of up to NT$50 million ($1,705,478).
