Crime of disclosure of knowledge or documents qualified as commercial secrets, banking secrets or customer secrets

The subject of this study is the crime of disclosure of knowledge or documents qualified as trade secrets, banking secrets or customer secrets, regulated in Turkish Criminal Code No. 5237 (Art.239). The purpose of the thesis is to explain the concept of secret, to determine which kind of knowledge has the nature of secret, to examine the structure of the crime regulated in Article 239. In this direction, in the first section of the thesis, the concept of secret will be examined. Also, in this section, the concepts of trade secret, banking secret, customer secret, scientific discovery, invention and industrial application knowledge which are mentioned in Article 239 will be analyzed. In the second section of the paper, the legal subject, material subject, material and moral elements of the crime will be examined. During this review, it is also aimed to point out certain matters which may cause problems or confusion in practice and to make comments and suggestions for overcoming these problems.