Haley Brown
Crimes of trafficking in trade secrets will be brought into the Information Age if legislation (HB 1523) sponsored by Lithia Rep. Mike Beltran continues to make its way through the House.
“We’ve had a lot of incidents over the past years, and the trade secrets statute, the criminal statute, is actually outdated,” Beltran said.
Beltran’s corporate espionage bill passed the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Subcommittee 18-0 Tuesday.
The legislation has the support of Gov. Ron DeSantis and House Speaker Chris Sprowls, who announced this bill among a package of legislation aimed at cracking down on foreign adversaries stealing intellectual property.
A trade secret is a formula, process, device, or other business information kept confidential to maintain an advantage over competitors.
The legislation creates the “Combating Corporate Espionage in Florida Act” by amending current trade secret theft definitions and crimes.
Beltran said the goal of the changes is to facilitate enforcement and remove loopholes arising from advances in technology.
“The criminal statute is outdated in that it requires you to actually take a physical item, which really isn’t the way people commit trade secret theft. They upload it to a cloud, they put it on their own USB, they download it onto their home computer. It’s not like 30 years ago, where you might print something, steal the blueprint, so forth,” Beltran explained.
The bill creates the crime of trafficking in trade secrets, a second-degree felony.
And the bill takes aim at foreign governments engaging in corporate espionage. Under the legislation, offenses would be reclassified one degree higher if committed with intent to benefit a foreign government.
About 80% of economic espionage prosecutions brought by the U.S. Department of Justice allege conduct that would benefit China.
“It’s very important to protect companies from corporate espionage, particularly from abroad,” Beltran said. “We’ve kind of had mixed results at the federal level so we need to take charge here in Florida and protect our companies.”
The bill also allows private individuals and corporations greater ability to seek compensation in state court for stolen trade secrets and offers immunity to a person who discloses trade secrets to authorities during an investigation or legal proceeding.
The next stop for the bill is the House Judiciary Committee.
A Senate companion bill (SB 1378) will be heard in the Criminal Justice committee at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday.
