The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday unanimously approved of increased protections for corporate whistleblowers.
The panel marked up the proposal as an amendment to a bill that itself would grant companies more power to sue alleged trade secret thieves in federal court.
Authored by the committee’s chair and its ranking member, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the amendment would seek to explicitly prevent bosses from retaliating against whistleblowers by filing litigation against them with powers that would be expanded under the broader legislation.
Drafted by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Chris Coons (D-Del.), the Defend Trade Secrets Act was also unanimously passed on Thursday by the committee. Currently, corporations have to seek punitive damages for trade secret theft in state courts, unless granted permission to sue in a federal court by the FBI and US Attorneys.
“It’s another way we can prevent retaliation and even encourage people to speak out when they witness violations of the law,” Grassley said, of the amendment.
“It is important that whistleblowers have strong and effective avenues to come forward without fear of intimidation or retaliation,” Leahy also remarked, in a statement released jointly with Sen. Grassley after the vote.
The statement noted that the amendment would specifically protect “whistleblowers who share confidential information in the course of reporting suspected illegal activity to law enforcement or when filing a lawsuit, provided they do so under seal.”
Supporters of the Defend Trade Secrets Act are bullish about its chances of passing both chambers, but Grassley had concerns it could “run into objections on the Senate floor or get mixed up with the separate push for a broader patent law overhaul,” according to Bloomberg.
The publication said that the bill’s asset seizure provisions are its “most controversial part…with a group of lawyers and professors opposed to the broader bill .”
“Labeling information as a trade secret has become a common way to prevent public and even regulatory access to important information,” the 31 academics wrote, in opposition to a 2014 version of the law. In November, their campaign was renewed with a handful of new signatories.
“Instead of addressing cyberespionage head-on, passage of the DTSA is likely to create new problems that could adversely impact domestic innovation, increase the duration and cost of trade secret litigation, and ultimately negatively affect economic growth,” they said in a letter addressed to Grassley, Leahy and their counterparts on the House Judiciary Committee.
