72. Thank you to those other Members who have shared information about their regimes so far. New Zealand also appreciates this opportunity to share New Zealand law on trade secrets.
73. New Zealand provides comprehensive civil protections and criminal sanctions for misappropriation and use of trade secrets.
74. Comprehensive civil protection is available by means of common law for confidential business information and technical information where reasonable efforts are taken by the holder of the information to keep it confidential. Protection extends to situations where information is imparted to third parties in confidence.
75. The Crimes Act 1961 provides for a term of imprisonment of up to five years for misappropriation of a trade secret, with the intent to obtain any financial or economic advantage or indeed to cause loss to any other person.
76. Finally we would just like to echo those Members who have already spoken acknowledging the benefits of trade secret protection. Particularly, we would also like to underline a recent OECD study of trade secret protection. This showed across Membership a positive and statistically significant relationship between the protection of trade secrets and certain aspects of economic performance.
