03 february 2012, 16h59

High court rules on corporate secrets

(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand)

The Supreme Court of Canada has issued a landmark ruling on what constitutes a corporate trade secret under the Access to Information Act.
The 6-3 decision makes its harder for companies that rely on exemptions in the act to block the disclosure of documents that may contain sensitive information that could hurt their business. The high court was ruling on a dispute between Health Canada and the pharmaceutical firm Merck Frosst Canada that dates back more than a decade. It started when an unidentified requester tried to access correspondence between the company and the department on the approval process for an asthma drug. Health Canada and Merck Frosst eventually found themselves before the Federal Court of Appeal, which sided with the government's decision to release some censored documents. The Supreme Court says the company didn't adequately make the case for keeping certain documents secret.

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