KOTA KINABALU - A U.S. proposal to punish trade secret theft with criminal sanctions is facing growing opposition in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations to the point that U.S. business lobbyists are mounting a coordinated effort to fig ht for strong and uniform criminal penalties as demanded by the U.S. government. The United States has made a TPP proposal on trade secrets that would require countries to have criminal penalties in place to punish the willful misappropriation of proprietary information. The business push on trade secrets, which is involves the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is being launched now because there is increasing reluctance among many TPP countries to adopt or strengthen criminal provisions for trade secret theft. This is due to the fact that increasing criminal penalties through trade agreements is often a domestically sensitive issue, a business source said.
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