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1 Bus. Entrepreneurship & Tax L. Rev. 398 (2017)
The Defend Trade Secrets Act Whistleblower Immunity Provision: A Legislative History

handle is hein.journals/betr1 and id is 408 raw text is: Menell: DTSA Whistleblower Immunity SYMPosIUM ARTICLE The Defend Trade Secrets Act Whistleblower Immunity Provision: A Legislative History Peter S. Menell** ABSTRACT The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) was the product of a multi-year effort to federalize trade secret protection. In the final stages of drafting the DTSA, Senators Grassley and Leahy introduced an important new element: immunity for whistleblowers who share confidential infor- mation in the course of reporting suspected illegal activity to law enforce- ment or when filing a lawsuit, provided they do so under seal. The mean- ing and scope of this provision are of vital importance to enforcing health, safety, civil rights, financial market, consumer, and environmental protec- tions and deterring fraud against the government, shareholders, and the public. This article explains how the whistleblower immunity provision was formulated and offers insights into its proper interpretation. * Koret Professor of Law and Co-Director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, University of California at Berkeley School of Law. This article grows out of a presentation that I made at a symposium hosted by the Center for Intellectual Property & Entrepreneurship and the Business, Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review at the University of Missouri School of Law on March 17, 2017. I am grateful to Professor Dennis Crouch for organizing the symposium and Brittany Bruns and Amit Elazari for research assistance. I am especially grateful to the Senate Judiciary Committee staff for reaching out to me in drafting the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016. This article is largely based on Peter S. Menell, Tailoring a Public Policy Exception to Trade Secret Protection, 105 Calif. L. Rev. 1 (2017). Published by University of Missouri School of Law Scholarship Repository, 201

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