The Protection of Trade, Banking, and Customer Secrets in Turkish Criminal Law

Abstract

Trade secrets, banking secrets, and customer secrets are subject to the same protection that has been provided by unfair competition laws or by other specific provisions such as the provisions of labor law, criminal law, and civil law. The privacy of trade, banking, and customer secrets is protected under the framework of criminal law in the Turkish Penal Code section for crimes of economy, industry, and trade. The goal of this study is to investigate the outlook of legislation as it relates to trade, banking, and customer secrets in Turkish criminal law. In this study, the crime of information disclosure and the criminal sharing of documents deemed as trade secrets, banking secrets, or customer secrets are analyzed in accordance with the general theory of crime. First, we examine both the material and moral elements of the current type of crime and discuss what reasons could justify that crime. Second, the study focuses on the special appearance forms of this criminal offense. In this regard, concurrence of crimes is explained as the main problem with regard to the violation of trade secrets, banking secrets, and customer secrets. This paper will also discuss available punishments for the perpetrator. In the last part of this study, we explain the draft law on "Trade Secrets, Banking Secrets, and Customer Secrets," which was created to clear up the inherent complexities of this issue, and attempt to balance it with the criminal framework that already exists for such secrets.