Protection of trade secrets in joint stock companies

Trade secrets are confidential information that provide economic benefits in favour of enterprises and commercial companies and establish superiority over competitors of the relevant companies. In today's conditions, trade secrets have a characteristic that covers financial, economic and commercial sectors. The concept of trade secret, which constitutes one of the main subjects of our study, has been analysed comparatively with the examples in foreign legal systems and in this context, the concept of trade secret and protection methods in Swiss, English, German and American legal systems have been mentioned. The present study consists of three parts. In the first part, in order to determine the boundaries of the trade secret, the definition of the concept and its relationship with other types of secrets are analysed. In the second part, the issue of the interests worth protecting on the trade secret is emphasised. In particular, the obligation to keep secrets within the scope of the Turkish Commercial Code and the Turkish Code of Obligations and other laws are analysed. In the third part, trade secrets and the protection mechanisms of such secrets in terms of the law of joint stock companies are analysed. The sources taken as basis in our analysis are the Turkish Commercial Code and the Capital Markets Law.