Fujian Provincial Administration for Market Regulation, along with four provincial departments of public security, procuratorate, supreme court and justice, recently promulgated Fujian Cooperation Mechanism for Protecting Business Secret, a pioneering policy in China to provide an effective solution to business secret protection.

It is reported that the policy has 12 measures clarifying how administrative, civil, judicial and procuratorial departments cooperate to analyze cases, and what principles for mutual recognition of evidence are to be followed. The fundamental aim is to offer quick response as infringement occurs, reduce losses, and stimulate the growth of market entities.

It is worth mentioning that the mechanism policy represents Fujian’s further step toward consistently and effectively protecting business secret. Since 2020, Fujian has implemented decisions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on strengthening business secret protection, and on building demonstration bases. There are 177 bases in cities, counties and districts across Fujian.

In February 2022, Fujian provincial authorities made early preparation for participating in the national pilot program for innovating business secret protection, which was officially launched by the State Administration for Market Regulation in March 2022. In July 2022, the first 20 pilot areas in 12 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government were chosen. Haicang district in Xiamen was one of them. To this end, the district government introduced a plan clarifying 19 priorities in five dimensions, namely, improving the system of business secret protection, providing awareness training programs for businesses, building consulting offices for business secret protection, and facilitating third-party consulting services.

In a dedicated law enforcement initiative against unfair competition, Fujian authorities investigated into and cracked down on infringement cases including those concerning business secret. In 2022, three such cases were exposed, one being dealt with by market supervision department, the other two by public security authorities.

Fujian Provincial Administration for Market Regulation will take concrete steps to implement the pilot program, and create an enabling environment for market entities. At the same time, the department will build an intelligent system to track the whole process of business secret protection.