Legal Protection of Trade Companies against Crimes and Offenses Related to the Commercial Secrets Disclosure

The article considers a set of legal, organizational, technical and forensic measures aimed at protecting the trade companies’ commercial secrets in the context of digitalization, high staff turnover and increasing number of information leakage incidents. The relevance of the study is due to the sectoral characteristics of the trade sphere, which increase the vulnerability of business to internal and external threats, as well as the significant difficulties in bringing perpetrators to disciplinary, civil and criminal liability in the absence of an appropriate regime for protecting confidential information. The purpose of the research is to identify legal mechanisms and a set of internal organizational and technical tools that ensure effective protection of trade companies from crimes and offenses related to the illegal receipt, use and disclosure of information constituting a trade secret, as well as to develop scientifically based recommendations for the improvement of this complex. Research methods include methods of classification, analysis and generalization, as well as a formal legal approach. Results: it has been established that the effectiveness of trade companies’ legal protection directly depends on proper documentation of the trade secret regime and compliance with legal requirements. Based on the practice analysis, a comprehensive system of measures is proposed aimed at preventing leaks and providing conditions for bringing violators to justice.