[6] In the original bill of the Federal Ministry of Justice led by the SPD, which became public for the first time in April 2018, there was no exception for journalists and whistleblowers.
Media associations and trade unions warned that journalists in particular, for fear of public prosecutorial investigations in the future, could shy away from uncovering maladministration.
On the part of the German Trade Union Confederation also an impairment of works council rights was suspected because employees could be hindered due to secrecy obligations to communication with the committees.
The disclosing person had to act with the motive that the general public was "pointing out a malady in order to contribute to a social change," it had said.
"This is the attitude test that is fortunately alien to modern criminal law," judged the left politician Niema Movassat.
[7] However, these aspects were corrected in the legislative process (see below, in the section entitled "Content of the law after the resolution by the German Bundestag").
[7] By law, trade secrets which, according to the bill, have been created, inter alia, by an independent discovery or creation,[10] are subject to uniform minimum protection throughout the European Union.
Those who can invoke the law are provided with effective tools to defend themselves against unauthorized acquisition, use or disclosure of trade secrets.
"[12] The law explicitly excludes employee and co-determination regulations from its scope, because there were two different, coherent criticisms of the government bill.
On the other hand, trade union sides also suspected that works council rights were impaired because employees could be prevented from communicating with the committees because of secrecy obligations.
However, according to the law passed by the Bundestag, trade secrets are only considered to be information whose confidentiality the owner has a legitimate interest in secrecy (see comments above).
[8][9] In addition, whistleblowers or journalists are no longer classified per se as infringer or adjudicators when they make trade secrets public, because "There is also a change in § 5: We have made an exception for the justification just mentioned - just to prevent that there is a lack of clarity on the part of journalism: am I going to do something for which I should first have to justify myself in court, or am I doing something that definitely, from the outset, falls under an exemption?